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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


CliapTPZ.’^ Copyright 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 












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SUNSHINE LIBRARY. 


AUNT HANNAH AND SETH. By James Otis $ 50 

BLIND BROTHER (THE). By Homer Greene 50 

CAPTAIN'S DOG (THE). By Louis Enault 50 

CHRISTMAS AT DEACON HACKETT'S. 

By James Otis 50 

CHRISTMAS-TREE SCHOLAR. 

By Frances Bent Dillingham 50 

DEAR LITTLE MARCHIONESS. 

The Story of a Child's Faith and Love 50 

DICK IN THE DESERT. By James Otis .- 50 

DIVIDED SKATES. By Evelyn Raymond ...... ,50 

GOLD THREAD (THE). By Norman MacLeod. D.D. . . .50 

HALF A DOZEN THINKING CAPS. By Mary Leonard . .50 

HOW TOMMY SAVED THE BARN. By James Otis . . .50 

J. COLE. By Emma Gellibrand . 50 

JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER. By Hesba Stretton ... .50 

LADDIE. By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission" . , .50 

LITTLE PETER. By Lucas Malet 50 

MASTER SUNSHINE. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser 50 

MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION. 

By the author of " Laddie 50 

MUSICAL JOURNEY OF DOROTHY AND DELIA. 

By Bradley Gilman .50 

PLAYGROUND TONI. By Anna Chapin Ray ..... ,50 

PLAY LADY (THE). By Ella Farman Pratt ..... .50 

SHORT CRUISE (A). By James Otis 50 

STRAWBERRY HILL. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser 50 

SUNBEAMS AND MOONBEAMS. By Louise R. Baker . .50 

WRECK OF THE CIRCUS (THE). By James Otis . . .50 

YOUNG BOSS (THE). By Edward W. Thomson ... .50 


THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY, 


NEW YORK. 




A 1‘kivate I.esson. 






NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y CROWELL 8tC? 
PUBLISHERS 






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JUL 31 1900 

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ORDER DIVISION. 

AUG 8 190b 


Copyright. 1900, by 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



Uo 

NATHANIEL THAYEK CHAPIN 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I.— Toni Scoffs, 1 

II. — Toni Trespasses, 12 

III. — Toni Comes, 24 

IV. — Toni Fights, 40 

V. — Toni Interviews Teacher, .... 58 

VI. — Toni Goes to the Sea, 75 

VII. — Toni Champions Naomi, 94 

VIII. — Toni Sees Death, 110 

IX. — Toni Becomes Regenerate, .... 126 



PLAYGROUND TONI. 


I. 

TONI SCOFFS. 

Toni stood on a chair by the back window, with his 
small elbows resting on the sill, his small chin in 
his hands. The immediate prospect was not an 
especially alluring one: a frowsy geranium or two 
and a nicked white pitcher on the ledge outside ; be- 
yond them, a background of dull gray sky. As a 
rule, Toni preferred the side window, for it opened 
on the fire escape where he and the boy below had 
constructed a string telegraph line. The nearness of 
the fire escape added to the desirability of the tene- 
ment. By day, it served for a playground for Toni 
and a storeroom for Toni’s mother; by night, hot, 
suffocating nights, when the very walls of the little 
rooms seemed gasping for breath in the foul, sodden 
air, it became a species of roof garden. A frayed 

cane-seated chair, a ragged blanket, the clean, clear 

1 


2 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


stars above, and, more than all else, the contrast 
with the room inside, made the long evenings on the 
fire escape seem quite luxurious by comparison, and 
the voice of Toni’s mother lost all its minor intona- 
tions, as she answered shrilly to the shrill questions 
of her neighbor on the fire escape beneath. 

To-day, however, the fire escape had no attraction 
for Toni, and he turned a deaf ear to the call of the 
boy below. The back window was set high in the 
wall and from the floor Toni could see only gerani- 
ums and sky. The sharp rap, rap of a hammer and 
the sound of voices from below had whetted his 
curiosity to such a point that, heedless of maternal 
chidings, he had tipped the cat out of a chair and 
dragged the chair to the window. As he clambered 
up, his line of vision changed. Below the gray sky, 
the tops of tall elm trees came into view, then a red- 
tiled roof, a red brick wall and at last the yard of 
School Number Seven. 

It was not characteristic of Toni to betray surprise. 
As a general thing, he looked on the world with a 
passive indifference which amounted almost to pat- 
ronage. Life in the tenements takes the edge off 
from most things, and Toni’s usual attitude was one 
of boredom, except in the rare moments when he 


TONI SCOFFS. 


3 


forgot himself and became the jolly little urchin for 
which Dame Nature had intended him. In such 
moments, Toni was irresistible; he laughed and 
twinkled and exuded merriment from every pore of 
his skin. There were other moments, also rare, 
happily, when Toni flashed fire, and in such moments 
it was not well to provoke him. For the rest, he 
was utterly lawless, utterly lovable, and not even 
approximately clean. 

He was well acquainted with the playground of 
School Number Seven. It was now some months 
since his parents had moved into the square brick 
block in a Eose Street back yard, and Toni had been 
enrolled among the pupils of Eoom Three. He knew 
the playground as a barren waste of brown earth 
trodden hard by many small feet, and shaded by the 
trunk of one little leafless tree, zealously planted on 
Arbor Day, but discouraged into yielding up the 
ghost within four weeks. Now, as he looked, his 
eyes grew round with astonishment. 

Four bicycles leaned against the high iron fence ; 
four stranger women were hurrying this way and 
that, issuing orders to a dozen men who plied ham- 
mer and saw and built tall scaffoldings whose pur- 
pose he was at a loss to discover. The yard was in 


4 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


two sections, and in the middle of each section he 
saw something that looked like a small and very gay 
circus tent, only without any prohibitive canvas at 
the sides. Some scarlet swings and green seesaw 
planks, probably of the nature of side shows, caught 
his eye ; but they were mere details. It was the 
gay scarlet tents that counted, the tents without any 
sides — unless they were to be added later. But if 
the two rings were in different tents, how see them 
both at once? The lady with the yellow hair seemed 
to be directing the others. Most likely she was the 
one who jumped through the blazing hoops. Toni 
had never been to a circus ; but he knew the lessons 
of the bill-boards by heart. He took one long, 
steady look. Then he stepped softly down from the 
chair and stole away out of the room. 

The yellow-haired lady looked up, a little while 
afterward, to discover a chubby nose pressed between 
the iron bars of the tall gate. The nose belonged to 
Toni, who had resolved upon getting a nearer view 
of the circus than the one to be gained from a chair 
in the back window. Moreover, one of the legs of 
the chair was broken, and it had wiggled insecurely 
under its excited occupant. His present position 
was at once more steady and more commanding. 


TONI SCOFFS. 


5 


Unknown to himself, Toni made quite as interest- 
ing a picture as did the tents in the school yard. 
His feet were bare and chubby, and his brown great 
toes perked themselves upward with a droll air of 
wishing to see what was going on in the world. His 
head was also bare, literally and absolutely bare, for 
Toni’s father was a barber, and he made it his rule 
to test the sharpness of his razors upon the head of 
his little son. It was better for the razors than for 
the son, however, and Toni’s head was perennially 
as bare as a billiard ball, since the soft yellow thatch 
could not begin to keep pace with the exigencies of 
the paternal business. Beneath his shorn pate, his 
lashes were full and curving above his dark blue 
eyes, his nose was snubby and round, but his upper 
lip shaped itself into a rosy bow. His costume was 
marked with the simplicity of the district in which 
he lived. It consisted solely of blue denim overalls 
and a dingy white cotton jumper with one cuff and 
no collar at all. On his Sabbath, he wore top boots 
and a hat ; otherwise he scorned such superfluities 
during the summer. 

The yellow-haired lady looked at him and smiled. 

“ Our first victim,” she observed to one of her com- 
panions. 


6 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“Where?” 

“At the gate. Isn’t he a picture? ” 

The other surveyed him doubtfully. 

“ Ye — es. I’m not sure that I want to get too 
near him, though. Look at those hands ! Do you 
suppose they have ever been washed ? ” 

“Yes, last Friday night,^’ the yellow-haired lady 
answered, as one who knew the habits of the dwellers 
in Rose Street. “You can’t be finicky down here, 
Isabel.” 

Isabel Dering raised her eyebrows. 

“Perhaps not,” she returned. “Still, I do prefer 
them to be clean.” 

“Make them so, then.” There was no suggestion 
of abruptness in the speaker’s tone, no hint of a re- 
buke. “I must tell those men to put the swings 
nearer together; we can’t spare so much room for 
them. When the sand comes, be sure it is put into 
both the bins.” She walked swiftly across the yard 
to where the carpenters were at work. When her 
orders were given, she looked back in time to see 
Isabel Dering draw nearer the gate. 

Toni watched her approach with some doubt. She 
was probably intending to drive him away ; he had 
met that fate, usually from men, however, upon pre- 


TONI SCOFFS. 


7 


vious occasions when the circus had come to town. 
Still, he was shrewd enough to know that, so long as 
he was in the public highway, he was within his 
lawful rights, and he determined to maintain his 
stand. He was unable to account for the absence of 
a frown from her face ; but that would come later. 
Meanwhile — 

“Well, small boy, what do you think about it? ” 

The accent was unlike anything Toni had ever 
heard before ; but the voice was kindly. He rolled 
his eyes up to her face and was silent for a moment. 
Then his curiosity refused to be held in check longer. 

“ W’en’s the cirkiss? ” 

“ The circus ! I don’t know. Wasn’t it some time 
in the spring ? ” 

The rosy lips and the surrounding smudgy halo 
took on a scornful curve. 

“ Don’t yer know ? ” 

“ I’m afraid I don’t,” Miss Dering confessed meekly. 

“ W’y, yer b’long to it; don’t yer? ” 

“I? Me? Oh!” And she began to laugh. “Do 
you mean this ? ” 

“ Sure. De tents an’ de teeters an’ all dat. W’en 
does it come ? ” 

“Next Monday,” 


8 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“Ain’t yer gittin’ it ready too soon? ” 

“No. Do you think we are? ” 

Toni surveyed the scarlet and green tent dubi- 
ously. 

“Wot if it rains? ” he asked. 

She mistook his meaning. 

“Then we shall wait till Tuesday.” 

“Yer won’t have it if it rains? ” 

“I think not, not if it rains hard, that is.” 

For a space, Toni ignored her presence, while he 
watched the setting up of a swing. Then he turned 
back to Miss Dering again. 

“An’ will she jump t’rough de hoops? ” he asked. 

“What? Who?” 

“Her.” He pointed his smutty thumb at the yel- 
low-haired lady inside. 

For one short instant. Miss Dering’s face grew 
scarlet and her lips twitched. Then she rallied. 

“No,” she said gravely; “this isn’t that kind of a 
circus.” 

“Oh, ain’t it? Wot sort is it, den?” His tone 
betrayed his disappointment. 

“ It is a place for you to come to play, this sum- 
mer. ” 

“Wot for?” 


TONI SCOFFS. 


9 


“So you can have a good time.” 

“Wot if I don’t wan’ ter come? ” 

The question, asked with a nonchalance far beyond 
his years, was a poser. Miss Dering changed her 
tactics. 

“ Wliat is your name ? ” she inquired. 

“Toni Valovick.” 

“How old are you, Toni? ” 

“Seven.” 

Seven ! And from his manner she had thought 
him ten at the very least. She shuddered at this 
first lesson in the way childhood is killed out in the 
tenements. At home, her seven-year-old brother 
was scarcely out of the nursery. 

“ Will you come here, next Monday morning, and 
bring your little brother? ” 

“I hain’t got no brudder.” 

“Your sister, then?” 

“Ain’t none.” Toni’s eyes were fixed upon his 
brown toes. 

“Then come alone.” 

“ Wot’s the use? ” 

“To play with us.” 

From beneath his long lashes, he flashed one 
glance at her. The glance was swift, but shrewd* 


10 


playground TONI. 


Then he shrugged his small shoulders and hitched 
up his lonely cuff. 

“ Wot’s de matter wid playin’ in Eose Street? ” he 
asked. 

“ Oh, but you don’t have swings and things there,” 
she urged. 

“ Wot’s de tents for, if dere ain’t no cirkiss? ” he 
demanded suddenly. 

‘‘ To keep off the sun in hot days. We’re going 
to have some hammocks under them, and some seats.” 

“ Wot’s hammocks? ” 

She smiled mysteriously. She saw that Toni was 
curious and that, through his curiosity, there lay the 
best chance of getting hold of him. 

“Wait and see,” she said craftily. “They will be 
ready for you when you come, Monday morning.” 

He turned to face her and disclosed the fact that 
one side of his snubby nose was quite white from 
long-continued pressure against the iron bars. 

“I ain’t cornin’,” he said tersely and with an in- 
vidious accent upon the personal pronoun. 

“Oh, please do,” she urged. 

“Shall you be dere?” 

“Yes.” 

“An’ her? ” He pointed across the yard. 


TONI SCOFFS. 


11 


“Yes.” 

He wavered. Then he said, — 

“No; I’d ladder stay wid de udder kids.” 

“But they will all be here.” 

Silence. 

“And you’ll come, too? ” 

Silence. 

“And swing in one of the'hammocks, Toni? ” 

Silence. 

“ And play jacks with me ? ” 

Silence. 

“And help the other large boys swing the little 
bits of girls ? ” 

Toni’s lip suddenly curled again. 

“ I don’ take care of no kiddies,” he said curtly ; “an’ 
I don’ git into no mission kindergarten, if I knows 
myself. W’en I plays, I plays in de street with de 
udder fellers.” With the dignity of a buskin-shod 
hero of melodrama, he turned upon his little bare 
heel. 

A moment later, Isabel Dering stood looking 
through the gate into a deserted street. 


II. 


TONI TRESPASSES. 

“ Adam ! ” Toni’s voice was charged with excite- 
ment, as he bent over the rail of the fire escape. 

No answer greeted him, and he called again,— 

“ Adam ! Adam Dombowski ! ” 

“ H — h ? ” The monosyllable was interrogative 
and expressive, but quite unspellable. 

“Come up here.” 

“Can’t.” 

“W’ynot?” 

“Me mudder told me to min’ de baby.” 

Toni peered scornfully over the rail. Himself an 
only child, he was at a loss to comprehend the loy- 
alty his friends showed to the family baby, their 
pride in infant achievements. 

“Dump him in de chair an’ come along.” 

“Can’t. Wot’s de row? ” 

“It’s down in de yard,” Toni explained excitedly; 
“allde fellers from Kose Street an’ lots of girls.” 

“Inside?” 



A Fond Mamma. 




TONI TRESPASSES. 


13 


“Nah.” Again the reply was somewhat unspell- 
able, though plainly of negative intent. “ Just bang- 
in’ round outside an’ lookin’ in.” 

“Ain’t nobody inside?” Adam asked. His posi- 
tion was too low down to permit him to view the 
scene of action, so he was forced to depend upon 
Toni’s bulletins, and he appealed to him as to a 
watchman upon a hilltop. 

“De laidies.” 

“Wot laidies?” 

“De ones I told yer about, de udder day.” Toni’s 
accent was slightly toploftical, as befitted his posi- 
tion. Besides, had he not held converse with one of 
the aforementioned “ laidies ” ? 

“ Wot’s dey doin’ ? ” 

“Just standin’ round an’ talkin’. De gate is shut. 
Gee! Now dey ’re bringin’ out t’ings to beat de 
cars. ” 

Toni’s excitement communicated itself to Adam, 
and inadvertently he tunked the baby’s head against 
the wall. The baby was a soggy little creature, 
however, and only blinked. 

“Wot sort o’ t’ings? ” 

“Balls an’ books an’ a little blackboard an’ — 
carts — an’ — a shiny wheelbarrer. ” 


14 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


There came a thump and a protesting wail from 
the baby. Then Adam, minus his small charge, 
came clambering up the fire escape. He reached 
the top and took his stand by Toni, just in season 
to see the iron gate swing back and the women in- 
side range themselves in a hospitable row to greet 
the inward rush which would follow. No rush did 
follow, however. Instead of that, the children coyly 
withdrew to the curbstone and feigned an interest in 
a passing dray. Miss Dering, who was wont to be 
nervous in supreme moments, giggled and hurriedly 
turned her back. The others stood waiting irreso- 
lutely, all but the yellow-haired lady. She stepped 
outside the gate and held out her hand to curly- 
headed Naomi Budesheim. 

“Come,” she said, with a smile that showed two 
deep dimples and took away all of Naomi’s small 
doubts ; “ come in and see if we can’t find a dolly for 
your baby to play with. ” 

With infallible instinct, she had struck the right 
chord. The surest way to win a place in Naomi’s 
heart was to notice her tiny sister Euth. Dollies 
were few and shabby in Euth’s corner of the world, 
and the pink-gowned, bewigged blonde that lay on a 
bench just inside the gate was exactly the right size 


TONI TRESPASSES. 


15 


to fill the little arms. Naomi hesitated only for a 
minute ; the next minute, she was nestling close to 
the yellow-haired lady and, with Eutli clinging fast 
to her other hand, she suffered herself to be led 
through the open gateway. 

It had been a wise choice that had fallen upon 
Naomi Budesheim. Without in the least suspecting 
the fact, Naomi was a leader in her small world. 
For one thing, in her pale, pinched little fashion, she 
was a wonderfully pretty child and totally devoid of 
all selfishness; for another, her mother had new 
lace curtains and a plush album in her parlor, and 
her father made it a point that his children should 
never be seen barefooted in the street. Naomi 
shared her social supremacy with Hosie Wikrowski, 
who had moved into a house with a doorplate left 
over from some remote day when that part of the 
city was the court end of town, and who wore spec- 
tacles and a mortar-board cap. To be sure, in its 
descent from university circles to a Kose Street slop 
shop, the mortar-board cap had lost most of its fresh- 
ness and all but ten threads of its tassel ; but neve: - 
theless Hosie felt himself a man of the fashionable 
world, as he watched the ends of those ten threads 
swaying before his eyes. 


16 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


Naomi was eight, and there were five little Budes- 
heims younger than herself; but her whole heart 
was given up to Euth, a fragile, fretful baby of two, 
whose calls upon her young nurse were constant and 
insistent. When it pleased Euth to walk alone, she 
walked ; otherwise she lifted up her voice and wailed 
until Naomi picked her up in her tired little arms 
and carried her for blocks at a stretch. Pennies 
were not plenty, and Naomi’s mouth watered at 
sight of the sticky goodies in Eose Street stalls ; but 
all the coveted morsels found their way into Euth’s 
mouth. It was doubtless much better for Naomi’s 
morals and Naomi’s digestion that it should be so; 
but the experience involved some self-denial. 

It was a busy life that Naomi led. Her mother 
had more thrift than her neighbors; but there was 
much to be done, and little Naomi must help where 
she could. Up in the morning early to get breakfast 
and tidy up the room, out on the streets all day lojig 
when the weather would allow, to give Euth all the 
fresh air she could get in that close-packed neighbor- 
hood, then home at night to tuck the babies into bed 
and crawl in beside them, too glad to be off from her 
tired little feet to care whether she lay on husks or 
on eiderdown. All that spring, Euth had been ailing. 


TONI TRESPASSES. 


17 


Now her pretty curly hair lay damp and clinging 
about her forehead, and her face had the pinched 
look of a hungry young robin. The doctor had pre- 
scribed fresh air, so, day after day, Naomi had car- 
ried her and led her by turns here and there through 
the neighboring streets. The sights they saw, the 
words they heard, were unfit for the eyes and ears of 
children ; yet, strange to say, Naomi saw and heard, 
and yet lost nothing of her childish innocence. It 
is a law of nature that soil rolls off from some sur- 
faces and leaves them unsullied. 

And now, after days of aimless strolling about the 
hot streets, of letting Euth amuse herself with scraps 
of orange peel rescued from the pile swept up in the 
gutter, Naomi was clinging to a firm, soft hand and 
looking down at Euth, who sat in a little scarlet 
chair and hugged the pink dolly to her blue calico 
bosom. She was too happy in watching Euth to see 
the expression in the blue eyes above her, or to heed 
the merry clamor that began to go up from the yard 
around. 

Naomi might be too busy, too absorbed in Euth 
to know or care whether she was popular. Still, 
where Naomi led, certain others were bound to fol- 
low, and the yard was slowly filling, while an ever- 
2 


18 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


increasing throng held themselves warily outside the 
gates and waited to see into what manner of trap 
their comrades had strayed and what befell them 
there. 

And Toni, meanwhile, stood on the fire escape, 
alone, for Adam had gone back to the baby. He 
watched the flying swings, the waving seesaws, 
watched Phillie Luyckx trying to draw on the little 
blackboard. Phillie always thought he could draw; 
but he couldn’t, at least, not one-tenth so well as 
Toni himself. He saw Bennie Bronstein and Sollie 
Levandowski playing with a great red ball, and im- 
mediately life became empty to him because he pos- 
sessed no such ball as that. He watched the whole 
happy, busy scene ; he envied as he watched ; and, 
the more envious he became, the more caustic were 
the bulletins that drifted down to Adam, now dan- 
dling the baby upon his ragged knees. 

Suddenly the bulletins ceased. All at once, Toni 
had been sure he saw Miss Dering look up toward 
him and wave her hand invitingly. On the impulse 
of the moment, he made a hideous face back to her. 
It was only a passing impulse, and Isabel Dering 
was too far away to catch the grimace. Neverthe- 
less, Toni’s heart became heavy within his small 


TONI TRESPASSES. 


19 


breast, and his wit ceased to sound witty in his own 
ears. He turned away and went down the long, 
dark stairways, crossed the yard and turned into Eose 
Street in search of some entertainment. Eose Street, 
in so far as its juvenile population was concerned, 
was well nigh deserted. 

Nearly a week later, Toni was again on the fire 
escape. Since that first Monday morning when, 
doubtful whether after all it might not be a real 
circus, he had taken his stand at dawn to watch 
what the day might bring forth, not a morning had 
passed without his appearing there. As yet, he had 
not been inside the playground ; only once had he 
been lured into peering inside the gate. No one 
knows what might have happened next, had not the 
policeman come around the corner just then. As it 
was, Toni scurried away like a frightened mouse 
that, ready to nibble at a baited trap, discovers a cat 
drawing near its tail. It was the part of safety to 
watch from the vantage ground of his own fire 
escape, or from the insecure footing of a chair in the 
back window. However, at noon and in the late 
afternoons when the yard was closed, he usually de- 
scended to the street to discuss the problem with his 
fellows. 


20 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“ Wot’s it all for? ” he asked, one day. 

“Dunno.” 

“Wot does dey want of yer? ” he persisted. 

“Nothin’.” 

“Oh, dey’s after somethin’,” he asserted. “You’s 
a greenie, if yer don’ know dat. Sometimes it’s 
shoes, an’ sometimes it’s picture-cards, an’ now it’s 
dis yard. Wot does dey call it? ” 

“ Playground. ” 

“Play-rats! Wot is it dey does to yer? ” 

“Nothin’.” 

“Don’ dey talk to yer, nor have any rules, nor 
wash yer? ” 

His companion neatly threaded his toe through a 
slice of onion in the gutter. Then he said slowly, — 

“No; not really. Dey won’t let us grab t’ings 
from de little kiddies, an’ dey says we’s got to play 
fair an’ take our turn in de swings after de girls. 
Dat’s all. One day. Teacher was goin’ to tell us a 
story ; but she wouldn’t do it till she’d sent Sol inside 
to wash his hands off. ’Twas a whoppin’ story, too, 
all about a man that planted snakes’ teeth, an’ raised 
a big crop of sojers.” 

“ Gee ! ” Toni said appreciatively. Then he de- 
parted to ponder upon the matter, for it passed his 


TONI TRESPASSES. 


21 


comprehension entirely. A place to play in, toys to 
play with, grown-up people who professed themselves 
anxious to play, too, people who could tell snake 
stories and no moral attached ! It was far better 
than the picture-cards. Their moral was palpable, 
and usually printed on the back in full-faced type. 
Toni scratched his right ankle with his left toes 
reflectively. 

On this particular afternoon, Toni’s heart was 
heavy. Even Adam had deserted him and gone oyer 
to the enemy. Toni could see him now, just lifting 
the baby into a basket-like carriage with a blue 
parasol hanging from a hook above it. That won- 
derful yard seemed to hold everything, even baby 
carriages. Naomi had put little Euth into another 
one and was .rolling her about the yard, in a futile 
effort to make Euth go to sleep. All night long, 
Euth had been ill and feverish until, in the gray 
dawn of early summer, Naomi had crept out of the 
crowded bed, taken the fretful child in her arms and, 
sitting on the fire escape in the cooler air outside, 
had crooned over and over again her little song about 
“ Birdies in the Greenwood. ” To be sure, Naomi had 
never seen any live birds but English sparrows, and 
she had no notion of what a greenwood might be ; 


22 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


but she liked the swing of the little song just as well 
for all that, and at last it had lured Euth into a half- 
hour of restless slumber, before it was time to dress 
her and take her to the yard. 

Naomi was a fond mamma, and, like all other 
fond mammas, she showed some skill in getting for 
her baby the best of whatever offered. Babies were 
plenty in the yard, that morning, yet Naomi had 
contrived to possess herself of a carriage with a shiny 
black top, and of a great red ball, just such a ball 
as Toni had coveted for so long. Euth was too list- 
less to hold the gay ball, however, and Naomi tucked 
it in beside the child who, too large for the carriage, 
lay stretched out with her thin little legs dangling 
limply over the dashboard. 

Up and down, up and down she went, a little 
human pendulum, only pausing now and then to peep 
under the black canopy to see whether the waxy lids 
drooped. Then more and more slowly she moved 
till she brought the carriage to a halt in the shadow 
close to the back fence. The woman-like care not 
to waken the sleeping child was not wholly amusing. 
Then Naomi crept away for a dozen paces, looked 
over her shoulder to assure herself that Eiith was 
really and truly asleep, and with a bound was in the 


TONI TRESPASSES. 


23 


middle of the group under the awning, a child in the 
midst of children. 

And Toni, from above, saw it all, saw the red ball 
lying unheeded beside the child asleep in a deserted 
comer of the yard. Temptation entered into Toni’s 
soul. The ball was so big and bright and bouncy. 

Ten minutes later, there was a scratching and 
scraping from the other side of the fei;ice, there was 
a thud, a shrill wail from Kuth and a shriller outcry 
from Naomi. On its side lay the carriage, with 
Kuth under it, and two small, smutty hands were 
just letting go the top of the back fence. To com- 
plete the chain of evidence, one of the hands also 
grasped a scarlet rubber ball. 


III. 


TONI COMES. 

There were many teachers; there was only one 
Teacher. The teachers came twice a day. They 
were there when the yard opened ; they closed the 
gates after the last child had gone. They were 
always kind and patient and helpful, always efficient; 
but in the eyes of the children they were obviously 
hirelings, and even their kindness suggested their 
being girt for the toil .Teacher came less often. 
Few days there were when she did not appear, but 
her appearings were at irregular hours. She had a 
trick of coming into the yard so quietly that none 
of the children saw her until she stood in their 
midst, smiling at the shrill shouts of welcome, at the 
swift rush of little feet flying toward her. Even 
then, she rarely said much to them or petted them ; 
she only looked straight into their eyes, rested her 
slim, strong hand on their shabby shoulders and 
listened to what they had to say to her. It was 
wonderful how soon she came to know the secrets, 


TONI COMES. 


25 


not always the happy secrets, of their little lives. 
Her word was law, a final authority from which there 
was no appeal ; yet the children never really feared 
her. By instinct they knew that she was just. 
Teacher was the lady with the yellow hair, and she 
it was who finally lured Toni into the yard. 

“ Isabel, where is your cherub ? ” she asked abrupt- 
ly, one morning, when she and Miss Bering chanced 
to be in the playground at the same time. 

Miss Bering was crossing the yard, with Grimm’s 
Tales tucked under one arm, and a garland of chil- 
dren clinging to either hand. 

“ Which one ? ” she asked blithely. 

Teacher laughed outright. The yard had been 
opened for two weeks now, and there was certainly 
an improvement in the cleanliness of the children. 
There was still room for improvement, however, and 
as Teacher saw the black finger-prints on Miss Ber- 
ing’s fresh shirt waist, she recalled Miss Bering’s 
early denunciations of the untubbed state of the chil- 
dren. That was two weeks ago, and now, for an 
hour, Isabel Bering had been sitting under the awn- 
ing with Orpah Budesheim in her lap and six or seven 
more children leaning on her shoulders. It was the 
same Isabel Bering, but — 


26 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“ Your cherub at the gate, that first morning we 
were down here.” 

“ Oh, the cirkiss one ? ” 

“Yes. Has he ever been here? ” 

Miss Dering cast an expressive glance about the 
playground. 

“ Has he? With all these swarming myriads, how 
can I tell? Still, I think I should know him again, 
if I saw him.” 

“I should, I am sure,” Teacher said with decision. 
“ He charmed me completely, and I wish we could 
get hold of him.” 

“That is sheer vanity on your part,” Miss Dering 
observed. “ You liked him because he thought you 
were the chief star of the cirkiss. So you are, even 
if you don’t jump through white paper hoops. Have 
you asked Miss Loomis about him ? ” ' 

“I don’t even know his name.”^ 

“It was Toni Something, Valovick, or Valorick, 
or Valorous. It made an impression upon me, for, 
as a rule, we are all minor prophets here, Hosie 
Wikrowski, and Amos Budesheim, and Dannie Mas- 
tenbrend.” 

“ Yes, we can begin at Adam and run through the 
list to Malachi,” Teacher answered. “But I would 


TONI COMES. 


27 


like to find out something about your Toni. His 
snubby little nose between those bars appealed to 
me wonderfully.” 

“Perhaps some of the children can help you find 
him,* Miss Dering suggested. 

Moved by a certain shy delicacy, the children 
realized that the talk did not concern them, and they 
had reluctantly gone away, leaving Miss Dering 
alone with Teacher. It was a constant source of 
wonder to both women, this innate fineness which 
kept the children from crowding upon them or be- 
coming too insistent. It was contrary to all their 
notions to find that children from such homes were 
more easily ruled, quicker to heed a word or even a 
glance oi disfnissal or rebuke than their own small 
brothers and cousins. With a childish gladness they 
received whatever good was offered them; when 
there was no more to be had, they took themselves 
off with an elderly contentment with what they had 
already received. It was not altogether obedience, 
neither was it wholly apathy. It was made up of 
them both, and it came from long generations of 
being a despised and persecuted race. Later on, it 
would be hidden under other and less lovely traits. 

“Naomi, come here a minute.” 


28 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


With. a bound, Naomi was at her side, her fingers 
clasped around Teacher’s hand. Euth came trudging 
at her heels. 

“Do you know any Tonis, Naomi? ” 

“Yes, lots of ’em, ma’am.” 

“ That aren’t here in the yard ? ” 

“Yes, ma’am. There is Toni Valovick that stole 
Ruth’s ball, and — ” 

Over Naomi’s curly head. Teacher and Miss Der- 
ing exchanged glances. 

“So that was Toni Valovick, was it? ” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“ What sort of a boy is he ? ” 

“ Oh, he’s a bad one ! ” Naomi clasped her hands 
dramatically as she spoke. 

“ Do you know him ? ” 

“No, ma’am; not to speak to him. He hasn’t 
lived in Rose Street long, only since spring; but 
everybody knows about him.” 

“Why?” 

“ Because he is so bad. He steals out of the push- 
carts, an’ he knocked Ruth down, one day, an’ took 
away her candy an’ ate it, right while I was a- 
lookin’.” 

“ Why doesn’t he come to the playground, Naomi ? ” 


TONI COMES. 29 

"Him?” Naomi’s tone was incredulous. “You 
don’t want him, Teacher.” 

“Why not?” Teacher’s lips were smiling; but 
her eyes looked steadily, kindly, rebukingly down at 
the little Pharisee. 

“ Because — why, Toni’s so bad,” Naomi reiterated. 
“My papa w’ouldn’t let me play with him a bit. 
He’s a very bad boy.” 

“All the more reason we want him here,” Teacher 
said. “That’s what the playground is for, Naomi.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Naomi said obediently, although 
she had not the faintest notion of what Teacher was 
driving at. 

Teacher waited long enough to give her time to 
grapple with the problem. Then she added, — 

“Naomi, what if we should try to get Toni here, 
and show him what good fun he could have without 
being bad? Don’t you think he’d rather play ball 
with you and Hosie than steal out of the push- 
carts ? ” 

“I don’t know, ma’am. You see, he is so awful 
bad.” 

“ Poor baby ! ” Isabel Dering murmured. “ And he 
is just seven years old. ” 

But Teacher went on, — 


30 


PLAYGROUND TONT. 


“If he should come, Naomi, would you ask your 
papa to let you play with him ? ” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Who knows him, who that’s here, I mean? ” 

“Adam does. He lives under him.” 

“ Which is Adam ? ” 

Naomi pointed out Adam, who was propping up 
the soggy baby in a chair and hemming him in with 
other chairs, and Teacher betook herself to his side. 

“Good morning, Adam,” she said cheerily. “ Is 
this your little sister? ” 

“It’s me brudder, ma’am.” And Adam showed 
his pleasure in being singled out for notice by 
straightening down the baby’s skirts. 

“ Isn’t he good ? And you take all the care of 
him? But I wouldn’t give him that candy, if I 
were you, Adam.” 

“W’y not? He likes it.” 

“ I know; but it isn’t good for him. Babies don’t 
want sweet things.” Teacher spoke as hopefully as 
if she had not been waging war upon Bose Street 
candy, for the past two weeks. Among these ragged, 
underfed children, stray pennies were more plentiful 
than she had supposed, and she was fast learning 
that one cause of baby illness lay in the fact that the 


TONI COMES. 


31 


babies sucked doubtful and highly colored taffy s be- 
fore they left off sucking their own dingy thumbs. 

Of course Adam saw her disapproval ; of course 
he took the candy away from the wailing infant; of 
course he promised to buy no more, and of course 
he promptly broke his promise. Meanwhile, as soon 
as she could make herself heard above the protesta- 
tions of the baby. Teacher returned to the charge. 

“Adam, do you know Toni Valovick? ” 

“ Yes, ma’am. He’s my chum, an’ de best scrap- 
per in Rose Street.” 

“ What is the reason he doesn’t come to the yard ? ” 

Adam’s social sense was still in a rudimentary 
state, and he saw no reason for beating about the 
bush. 

“Don’ wan’ ter,” he said tersely. 

“I’m sorry. I thought you boys liked it.” 

“ We does, all but Toni.” 

“ Has he ever been here ? ” 

Adam shook his head. 

“Have you asked him to come? ” 

“Yep. Says he don’ wan’ no yard to play in, 
w’en he’s got Rose Street.” 

“ What kind of a boy is Toni ? ” Teacher asked 
suddenly. 


32 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“He’s all right.” 

“Not a bad boy? ” 

“ Nab. He’s no softie ; but he’s good, for all dat.” 

Teacher liked Adam’s frank loyalty to his absent 
friend. 

“ How do you mean good ? ” she asked. 

“ W’en I busted my leg, in de spring, an’ couldn’t 
go out wid de pypers, he took mine an’ his’n too, an’ 
give me half de rocks. An’ once he kicked Phillie 
Luyckx for sassin’ Becky Keinstein, w’en she didn’ 
know enough to sass back. Toni ain’t got no use 
for Phillie, anyhow.” 

Teacher nodded understandingly. Becky, four- 
teen in years and four in intellect, was in constant 
attendance at the playground, which winked at its 
nine-year limit when she appeared. She was not 
attractive, and Toni’s championship of her cause 
might be owing to some latent germ of pure chivalry 
which might in time atone for the episode of Ruth’s 
ball. It might also be owing, however, to an in- 
herent fondness for strife. 

“You will bring Toni with you, to-morrow, 
Adam ? ” Teacher said interrogatively, as she rose. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Adam replied obediently; “if he’ll 
be brung.” 


TONI COMES. 


33 


The baby had lopped forward again, with its head 
and feet in unnatural proximity. It was gurgling 
and choking to an alarming extent; but, for the 
moment, Adam paid no heed. He was watching 
Teacher’s firm, free step as she crossed the yard, look- 
ing at her smooth yellow hair and at the trim hang of 
her short skirt; and, as he watched, he thought of 
his mother’s frowsiness, and he wondered. Then he 
picked up the baby, shook out its crumpled clothing, 
and with his clumsy boyish fingers tried to straighten 
down the tangled hair and rub away some of the 
smears from its face. 

There was a great bunch of nasturtiums to be dis- 
tributed, that noon, and the children lined up inside 
the gate and stood waiting patiently for a blossom or 
two. As a rule, the gates were left hospitably open 
until an hour before time for the yard to close ; then 
they were locked and, at the appointed hour, the 
children were marshalled out in decorous order, the 
boys in the rear, the girls ahead of them, and the ba- 
bies first of all. To-day, the teachers were going 
up and down the lines, their hands laden with the 
bright blossoms, while the children received the 
blossoms with faces as bright as the golden flowers. 

Some were greedy, some shy, some indifferent; yet 
3 


34 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


each was the better for the flower or two to carry 
away to his flowerless home. 

Teacher and Miss Dering never tired of watching 
the pretty picture. Sometimes they took a hand in 
the distribution; more often they -stood back and 
looked on, smiling to see a red blossom “ swapped ” 
for a yellow one, a pink sweet pea for a blue bach- 
elor’s-button. Suddenly, as they stood together. Miss 
Dering broke the silence that had fallen between 
them. 

“ Poor Toni ! ” she said impulsively. 

Teacher shook her head. 

“ Not poor Toni at all ! I do hope we can get him 
to come soon.” 

“But if he is so bad,” Miss Dering interposed 
dubiously. 

“He isn’t.” 

“Naomi said — ” 

“ Naomi doesn’t forgive any insult to Kuth’s dig- 
nity,” Teacher said, smiling. “Toni isn’t altogether 
hardened. I asked Adam about him, and he told 
me — ” 

“ Hsh ! Here he is ! ” Miss Dering clutched Teach- 
er’s arm excitedly. 

“Ah — h — h — h! Dat’s de time yer couldn’ git 


TONI COMES. 


35 


out’n dere. Now wot does yer t’ink of yer play- 
ground? You’s rats in a trap; dat’s wot yer is.” 

Teacher turned around, to discover Toni dancing 
gleefully about the sidewalk and exchanging com- 
pliments with Adam who, by reason of the baby, was 
at the head of the line of boys. Toni was a shade 
less clean than when she had seen him before, and 
his jumper had parted with its solitary cuff. Other- 
wise he was unchanged. 

“ Shut up ! ” Adam said explosively. 

“ Eats ! Rats ! Doesn’t yer wish yer could git 
out? Dere’s a feller been nabbed, down in Rose 
Street ; de cops has got him now, an’ yer can’ see de 
fun.” 

“Don’ believe it,” said Adam sturdily. 

But Toni frisked about like a gnome, alternately 
jeering at the captivity of his friends and explaining 
to them the exciting events just transpiring in Rose 
Street. In spite of herself. Teacher laughed. Then 
slie drew near the gate ; but Miss Dering was before 
her. 

“Toni,” Miss Dering called; “Toni, don’t you 
want some flowers ? ” 

He halted and looked at her, half merrily, half dis- 
trustfully. Between the bars, she held out a half- 


36 PLAYGROUND TONI. 

dozen blossoms toward him. He seized them, 
smelled of them gingerly, held them high in the 
air; then, with a merry, mocking laugh, he tossed 
them back again over the fence and went scamper- 
ing away up the street and around the corner. 

It was earlier than usual, the next morning, when 
Teacher came into the playground. She made her 
usual leisurely round to see that all was running 
smoothly ; she went inside the great sunshiny kin- 
dergarten room to talk over a few details with the 
teachers; then she came out again and, instead of 
going over to the awning or the sand bin, she settled 
herself in a shady corner just inside the open iron 
gate, with her back turned directly toward it. 

“Now, who wants to hear a story?” she asked 
gayly, and in a moment Naomi and Euth and Adam 
and the baby and a dozen more of the minor proph- 
ets were squatting on the ground beside her. 

Teacher told a story well. She never lost a cer- 
tain dainty purity of speech, yet the minor prophets 
never seemed to realize that she was not talking to 
them in their own vernacular. Moreover, as she 
told over the dear old classic tales, the dragons ap- 
peared to be all teeth and claws, the heroes to be 
all shining mail and noble courage, and Adam, as 


TONI COMES. 


37 


he listened to the stirring climax, clutched the baby 
so tightly that it roared a lusty accompaniment to 
the death of the Minotaur. 

“And so the Minotaur died, and Theseus went 
home to his father,” Teacher was saying, when Na- 
omi suddenly twitched at her skirt. 

“ Teacher, here’s Toni ! ” 

But Teacher never heeded. She neither turned 
her head nor raised her voice at all, as she went on 
to the end of her story, yet so near was she to the 
fence, so clear and distinct was her accent, that each 
syllable was heard by the small ears just outside the 
gate. 

“ But Theseus was selfish. He only thought about 
himself, and he forgot all about his promise to 
change the color of his sails. And so his father 
was sure he had been killed and eaten up by this 
terrible beast, half-bull and half-man. The old fa- 
ther loved his son so dearly that he died of sorrow, 
because he thought he should never see him or talk 
to him again.. That is all of that story; but we 
have time for just one more. What shall it be? ” 

“Tell about de feller dat planted de snake’s 
teeth,” Adam suggested. 

And so, for the tenth time. Teacher told the chil- 


38 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


dren the story of Cadmus. She threw herself into 
all the details with an enthusiasm which apparently 
made her heedless of the small figure stealthily 
drawing near and nearer the group. 

“How many of you have ever seen a snake? ” she 
asked, when she had satisfactorily extricated Cad- 
mus from all his difficulties. 

“Me an’ Bennie went to de Fort, las’ summer, 
an’ we seen a little one dere,” Hosie said triumph- 
antly. 

“Did you? What was he like? ” 

“Black an’ yeller, an’ he walked like dis.” Hosie 
wriggled in what he fondly imagined was a graphic 
representation of a snake’s mode of locomotion. 

Teacher sat waiting for more disclosures. The 
children always loved to contribute their mites to 
the story-telling. While she waited, she watched 
a group far across the yard beside one of the swings. 

“ My turn next ! ” she heard Linkie Jefferson 
shout, as Carrie Luyckx let the old cat meet a slow 
and reluctant death. 

Linkie was as smooth and brown and round as a 
chocolate cream, and he always amused Teacher; 
but now the smile on her lips was not all for him. 
Out of the corners of her eyes, she had discovered 


I 


TONI COMES. 


39 


the little figure on the outskirts of the group, had 
seen him moving uneasily, as if he too had had 
experiences with a snake and were burning to im- 
part them. 

“ My big brudder he killed a snake once, out’n de 
park,” Phillie was boasting proudly. 

“Dat’s nothin’.” The explosion had come at last, 
and so suddenly that even Teacher started a little. 
“ W’en me fader come over to America, dere was a 
big snake got loose in de ship wid ’em, an’ dey had 
ter shoot it daid before dey could ketch it agin.” 

“Ah — h — h, rats, Toni! ” Adam protested. 

But Teacher had risen to her feet. 

“That is enough story for this morning,” she said 
blithely. “Now I think I’d like to play ball, and 
I am going to ask — ” her glance strayed over the 
group and instantly a score of hands were waving 
in mid-air, “to ask Adam, — and Hosie, — and Na- 
omi, — and Toni to play with me.” And followed 
by her four chosen playmates, she walked away 
across the yard. 


IV. 


TONI FIGHTS. 

“I wen’ ter visit a frien’, one day ; 

She only lived across the way ; 

She said she couldn’ go out ter play 
Becuz it wuz her washin’ day. 

This is the way she washed away, 

This is — ” 

Naomi’s thin elbows were flying, as she scrubbed 
at an imaginary board, and beside her Euth flapped 
her arms in time to the pounding rhythm of the 
refrain. Beyond Euth was Hosie Wikrowski; be- 
yond him, Adam ; beyond Adam, Toni. 

Once safely inside the yard and safely out again, 
Toni had been a daily visitor. Such a sudden 
change of attitude might, easily have weakened his 
dignity ; but Toni’s prompt measures had forestalled 
that. The first boy who had twitted him upon his 
capitulation had been silenced by a resounding 
whack over the head with the picture book whose 
possession he had been disputing with Toni. The 
whack, given in the presence of a round dozen of 


TONI FIGHTS. 


41 


the minor prophets, had proved efficacious. The 
victim had deemed it wise to pick up the ruins of 
the book and to hold his peace, while Toni had 
stalked away in company with Adam. 

“Yer fetched him a good one,” Adam observed 
with manifest satisfaction. “He won’ give yer no 
more talk, Toni.” 

“Let him, if he wants ter,” Toni said pugna- 
ciously. “I’ll smash him wid a chair, if he does.” 

“Nah; once’ll do. Yer licked him, an’ dat’s 
enough. Wot’s de use o’ scrappin’ here? ” 

“W’y not?” 

“Teacher don’ like it.” 

“ Teacher ! ” Toni mocked in a plaintive falsetto. 
“W’ich teacher? Dey’s all teachers here. ’Tain’t 
no better’n de school.” 

Adam’s lips quivered with the longing to ask him 
why he came ; but he wisely forebore. 

“Dey’s all on ’em teachers; but she’s de only one 
dat’s in it,” he returned, with a sweep of his hand 
toward the awning. “Miss Loomis an’ the rest’s 
good enough ; but Teacher ain’t like ’em. She don’ 
have ter come, an’ she’s so kind er — shiny.” He 
had hesitated for the last word; but, when it came, 
he used it with a sort of triumph, for it seemed to 


42 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


him to express just what he wished. Once, in one 
of his rare expeditions to the better part of the city, 
he had strayed into an old brown church with arches 
and bright colored windows. Now, whenever he 
looked at Teacher, he thought of those windows and 
of the way the sunshine slanted through them. 

Now that he was inside the playground, Toni was 
allowed to go on his own tempestuous little way. 
It was something to have him willing to come at 
all ; for the present, it was better to leave him un- 
molested. For a day or two, he apparently devoted 
himself to proving all things. Swings, seesaws, 
picture books, balls and the blackboard, he tried 
them all in turn. He was discovered with the 
largest doll in his arms, and he even went so far in 
his explorations as to take possession of a baby car- 
riage, baby and all, and go racing about the yard in 
a mad career which endangered the life of his shriek- 
ing passenger. Miss Loomis interposed, however, 
just as Toni tilted the baby on the ground and pre- 
pared to clamber into the carriage in its place. She 
interposed once more, when Toni assumed sole own- 
ership of the sand bin and held the dispossessed 
babies at bay with one hand while he constructed 
tunnels with the other. He had proved all things ; 



don’ wan’ ter Swing 






V 









TONI FIGHTS. 


43 


now apparently he was about to hold fast that which 
was good. Monopolies could not be allowed, how- 
ever, and the line must be drawn somewhere. Still, 
for the most part Teacher’s advice was followed, and 
Toni was left to his unregenerate ways. 

It was some time before Toni ventured into the 
kindergarten room where the ring was, and the sing- 
ing games. It was a great airy, sunshiny place, 
bright with flowers and gay with the sound of a 
piano ; but Toni appeared to regard it as a species of 
trap, and he withstood all of Adam’s efforts to drag 
him inside. At length, however, he yielded, and 
Miss Loomis, the head kindergartner, smiled to her- 
self as she saw the enthusiasm with which he shouted 
the songs. For the hour, Toni was at his best. He 
liked the marching, he liked the games in the ring, 
and when upon his shoulders fell the honor of being 
chosen 

“The loving father, 

Brave and full of cheer,” 

he fairly strutted, as he crossed to his place in the 
family circle at Miss Loomis’s side. To be sure, it 
was impossible for him to take anything, even his 
happiness, altogether seriously, that day. His mer- 
riment mounted with his excitement; it manifested 


44 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


itself in all manner of little giggles and snickers, 
and it reached an ecstatic climax when he ended 
the “ loving father ” song with an improvised trill 
at least an octave and a half above the other 
voices. 

“You mustn’t do that again, Toni,” Miss Loomis 
remonstrated. “ I want you to sing with the others.” 

“ No, ma’am,” he returned obediently ; “but I feels 
so funny I can’ help yellin’ a little.” 

Toni continued to feel funny, all that day and the 
next, until the other children were reduced to a tit- 
tering state of demoralization. On the third after- 
noon, Miss Loomis asserted herself. It was all very 
well for Teacher to have a proteg4 ; but teachers had 
their rights as well as Teacher, and the proteg4 was 
upsetting all the discipline of the games. Accord- 
ingly, when Toni presented himself at the door of 
the kindergarten room, the door was closed to 
him. For a time, he besieged it in vain; then he 
sallied forth into the yard, to wreak his vengeance 
upon any one who might chance to come in his 
way. 

That some one proved to be Adam. The kinder- 
garten room could only hold a small fraction of the 
three or four hundred children in the yard. For 


TONI FIGHTS. 


45 


a week, Adam had contrived to wriggle past the 
young teacher at the door and to take his place in 
the ring; but, on this particular day, he had been 
told to remain outside to make room for the others. 
Adam’s temper was usually of the best ; but now he 
set the soggy baby into the swing, with a thump 
which roused it from its wonted apathy. 

“Shut up, or I’ll lick yer,” he growled, as he 
rocked it gently to and fro. “Git out’n de way, 
Toni!” 

“Sha’n’.” 

“Le’ go. Yer in de way.” 

“I’m goin’ ter swing de kiddie,” Toni announced, 
not for love of ministering to the baby, but because 
he was shrewd enough to discover that Adam was 
cross, and that Adam would be annoyed by his at- 
tentions. 

“Nah, yer ain’t. Yer’ll pitch him out. Stop it, 
Isay.” 

“’Taiu’t your swing.” 

“Nor your’n.” 

“ Go over an’ swing dat udder one, if yer wants 
ter.” 

Toni cast a scornful glance over his shoulder at 
the trio of girls in the swing near by. 


46 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“Dey can swing derselves, or dey can sit still,” he 
announced. “ 1 stays here. ” 

Adam yielded, and for a few moments the mutter- 
ings of the coming storm were silenced. 

“W’y ain’t yer inside?” he asked, after a 
pause. 

“Didn’ wan’ ter. W’y ain’t you? ” 

“Sick of it,” Adam replied tersely. 

Toni eyed him malignly. 

“Bet yer life dey wouldn’ let yer in.” 

“Would, too.” 

“ W’y didn’t yer go? ” 

Adam made a false move. If he had only ad- 
hered to his statement that he was tired of it, all 
might yet have been well. Unfortunately he shifted 
his ground. 

“ I had ter mind de baby. ” 

“I’ll mind de kiddie. Go on in.” 

“Nah.” 

“Go on.” 

“Don’ wan’ ter,” Adam reiterated. 

“Dey won’ let yer; dat’s w’y.” Toni fell to ca- 
pering on one foot. “Ah — h — h, Adam got fired 
out!” he shouted to Hosie Wikrowski, half the 
yard-length away. 


TONI FIGHTS. 47 

“Was not. Yer got fired out, yerself. I hearn 
Teacher tellin’ yer ter keep out.” 

“No such a t’ing. I kin go in w’en I wants ter. 
I’d ruther stay here an’ swing.” 

“ Yer’ll have ter go somewheres else to do it. ” 

“ ’Tain’t your swing, an’ you’ve had it, all de after- 
noon.” 

Torgetful of the baby, Adam swung himself round 
to face a tormenting foe. 

“ I don’ wan’ ter swing, myself ; but I ain’t goin’ 
ter hike dis kid out fur a feller like you,” he pro- 
claimed, as he hitched up his small trousers and 
then planted his hands on his hips. 

The attitude was defiant, the tone more so. More- 
over, both boys were smarting from the knowledge 
that the chief joy of the afternoon had been denied 
to them. Approached differently, the knowledge 
might have made them forget the smart in the loved 
companionship of misery ; as it was, they eyed each 
other askance for a long minute, poised for the fray 
like two small bantam roosters. Then they clinched, 
and in an instant they were rolling on the ground 
together. 

“Toni! Adam!” 

It was wonderful what strength lay in those slen- 


48 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


der white hands. All of a sudden, the two boys 
felt themselves plucked apart and held up to jus- 
tice. Above them, Teacher’s blue eyes were blaz- 
ing, and she felt a momentary longing to bump the 
two small heads together until the culprits cried out 
for mercy. Only the evening before, she had as- 
sured a sceptical young man that fighting was un- 
known in the playground of School Number Seven. 

“ What are you doing ? ” she demanded sternly. 

Toni wrapped the shreds of his jumper sleeve 
about his elbow with every manifestation of anxious 
care. Then he looked up. 

“I sh’d think yer could see widout bein’ told,” 
he responded nonchalantly. 

“He pitched inter me,” Adam exploded. 

“Did not. He begun de scrap. I was only fool- 
in’. I could lick him easy, an’ not harf try.” 

“Could not.” 

“Could!” 

Too late. Teacher regretted her unwisdom in let- 
ting go the combatants. Before she could stop 
them, they had flown at each other once more, and 
Toni’s jumper had parted with the rest of its sleeve. 

“Now,” Teacher said quietly, when she had them 
on their feet again ; “ I want to have a little talk 


TONI FIGHTS. 


49 


with each one of you. I shall see Adam first, be- 
cause he has to take care of his baby. Then I shall 
send him home. A boy that fights can’t stay here. 
Toni, while I talk to Adam, I am going to put you 
into this room by yourself, and leave you to think 
about what you have done. It will bear a good 
deal of thinking about, too.” 

Driving the two boys before her like sheep, she 
entered the corridor of the building, passed the door 
of the kindergarten room and led the way to a large, 
light storeroom. She turned the key on Toni. 
Then she took Adam away to the stairs at the far 
end of the corridor and made him sit down beside 
her. 

“Now, Adam, I want you to tell me all about it,” 
she said kindly, yet with a decision he dared not 
gainsay. 

“Toni laid for—” 

“Wait,” she interposed abruptly. “I asked you 
to tell me about it, not him.” 

Adam looked uncomprehending. 

“ Wot d’yer mean? ” 

“ I don’t want to know about Toni ; he can tell 
me that part of it. What made you fight? ” 

“He did.” 

4 


50 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“But I thought you and Toni were friends.” 

“Nah.” 

“He sold papers for you.” 

Adam’s eyes dropped to his bare brown toes, and 
he pulled at the loose threads around the hole in 
the knee of his baggy trousers. Teacher pursued 
her advantage relentlessly. 

“ I don’t think it was all Toni, any more than I 
think it was all Adam. One boy never fights alone. 
Something was the matter with you. What was it? ” 

He wriggled uneasily. Under similar conditions, 
his mother was wont to cuff him. Her hand was 
hard and her arm was strong ; yet her cuffing had 
never hurt him half so much as did the look of 
grave displeasure in the blue eyes above him. 

“Felt ugly,” he blurted out, after a prolonged 
silence. 

“ Why? ” Was it chance that led Teacher to rest 
her fingers on the brown head, at that moment? 

“Dey wouldn’ le’ me inside de room.” 

“Had you been naughty there? ” 

“Nah. Dey said ’twasn’ my turn.” 

“That was it? We all have to take our turns, 
Adam. It isn’t fair for you to be in the ring, every 
day. Was that all?” 


TONI FIGHTS. 


61 


He nodded. 

“And you felt ugly, just for that? And fought? ” 
“ Yes ; but Toni, he — ” 

She interrupted him again. 

“ No ; we won’t talk about Toni. We are talking 
about Adam Dombowski now. Adam, what if, 
every time I felt ugly, I fought with somebody? ” 
He looked up sharply. 

“ Do yer feel ugly ? ” 

“ Yes, often.” 

“Honest? Let’s shake.” 

With perfect gravity, she offered him her hand. 
Then she returned to the charge. 

“ What should you think, Adam, if you saw me 
rolling on the ground and fighting ? ” 

“Me mudder done it once,” he said reminiscently; 
“an’ de cops come an’ took her away in de p’lice 
wagon.” 

Teacher faltered. In talking with these children, 
one could never be sure of one’s ground. It was 
useless to appeal to Adam’s sense of decorum, when 
he was accustomed to see hfs mother sinning even 
as he had just sinned. How far were these children 
accountable for their naughtinesses? Eesolutely she 
pushed the question aside. She would forgefrthe 


52 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


cause of the trouble and only hunt for the cure. If 
Adam’s parents fought like the beasts of the street, 
then just so much the more reason that, in the little 
time she had with him, she should try to kill out 
the beastly in his nature and strengthen the germ 
of true humanity which is common to all little chil- 
dren, whether their homes are in tenement or in 
palace. 

N'o matter what she said in the talk which fol- 
lowed. Like Adam, we all have had such experi- 
ences; but the words would be tame and colorless, 
if we tried to set them down. But the sun, striking 
down through the stairway window, fell full upon 
Teacher’s yellow hair, as she bent over the boy at 
her side, fell full upon Adam’s tousled head buried 
in his arms on the step above him. Gently, very 
gently, Teacher lifted the head and turned the face 
toward her. 

"Adam,” she said slowly; "it isn’t easy to do; 
but I want you to remember that, when you feel 
ugljj you mustn’t strike somebody. Just shut your 
teeth and laugh, and try to forget all about it, and 
then the ugly will go away. Better still, don’t be 
so ready to feel ugly. We want you to be happy 
and full of fun.” She half drew back before the 


TONI FIGHTS. 


53 


bitter mockery of her own words. Happy, full of 
fun, in such a home as that of which he had just 
been telling her ! Then she went on bravely, “ That 
is what the playground is for, to help you to be 
happy. Happy people are always good, and we want 
you to be very good, so we are trying’ to make it as 
easy for you as we can. Now, take the baby and go 
home, dear. You’ve been naughty, and you must 
take your punishment like a man; but remember 
that I am coming down in the morning, and that 
I shall look for you. And, Adam, don’t you think 
it would be a good idea to ask your mother to put 
a clean dress on the baby ? ” 

Keluctantly he rose and went away down the cor- 
ridor. At the door, he turned to look back. Teacher 
was standing where he had Jeft her, in the full glare 
of the July sunshine, and once more his thoughts 
went back to the dim old Gothic church, and to the 
central figure of the window above the altar. 

And Toni? 

Teacher wearily drew her hand across her fore- 
head. Then she stepped down from the stairs and 
entered the darker corridor. She was astonished to 
find wide open the door of the room where she had 
left Toni. Farther along the corridor, Isabel Her- 


54 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


ing stood with her back against a closet door. 
From the other side of the door there came roar 
after roar, full-toned and lusty, and punctuated by 
sounding blows from two small fists and two small 
feet. 

“My cherub is in here,” Miss Dering announced 
grimly. “ I began to think you were going to keep 
on remonstrating with Adam until he arrived at 
years of discretion. Eeally, 1 needed reinforce- 
ments. I discovered too late that this door doesn’t 
lock, and the cherub within is flapping his wings 
rather vehemently. Please lend me your back, to 
eke out the failing strength of my own.” 

In spite of herself. Teacher laughed. 

“Do be serious, Isabel. What did you put him 
in here for? ” 

“ What did you put him in the storeroom for? ” 

“He and Adam had been fighting.” 

“Oh. Well, I was passing the door and I heard 
him explaining to whomsoever it might concern 
that, if we didn’t let him out, he would ‘ bust de 
winder on us ’ and go that way. I didn’t want to 
run the risk of a bill for broken glass, so I trans- 
ferred him to this dungeon. If I had supposed it 
would take you so long to administer justice to 


TONI FIGHTS. 


55 


Adam, though, I think I shouldn’t have taken just 
this stand in the matter.” 

“How long has this been going on? ” 

“Forever, I should think. It is temper now, not 
sorrow, I suspect, and his voice is getting a little 
husky, so the crisis may be passing.” 

“ Toni ! ” Teacher raised her voice above the mur- 
mur in which they had been speaking. 

“Le’ me out!” 

“Not until you are quiet.” 

The knob rattled furiously ; there came a fresh 
roar, a fresh storm of kicks against the panels. 
Then, 

“ Le’ me out’n dis, I say ! ” 

“Not till you stop kicking and crying.” 

The kicks redoubled. Teacher waited until the 
childish strength was exhausted. Then she said, — 

“Toni, you are only wasting your time and mine. 
You can’t come out until you are quiet. When you 
stop kicking, I will open the door.” 

The kicks ceased ; but the roars continued. 

“Kicking and screaming both, Toni.” 

There were a few last sounds from within. Then 
there was silence. Teacher took out her watch and 
held it while the second hand marked five complete 


56 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


circles. With an expressive glance at Miss Dering, 
she threw open the door. 

‘‘Toni.” 

No answer. 

“Toni, you can come out now.” 

Not a word. 

“Toni, come here.” 

Teacher’s voice was authoritative ; but there was 
no answering sound from the closet. At best, the 
closet was a dark one and, in the late afternoon 
light, it was impossible to see far inside its door- 
way. Teacher and Miss Dering exchanged another 
glance; then slowly and gingerly Teacher stepped 
across the threshold. The closet was deep and, 
bending at a sharp angle, it wound away under the 
stairs. Teacher moved slowly to the angle, stum- 
bled a little over a box or two, came into collision 
with a pile of chairs, cast one lingering glance back- 
ward at the square of light from the doorway, and 
rounded the corner into the pitchy darkness beyond. 
Once she thought she heard a little chuckle, and 
she halted to listen. All was silent, however, and 
she moved on again. The next instant, she started 
violently. From the darkness behind her there 
came a shout. 


TONI FIGHTS. 


57 


" Booh !” And Toni rose and scurried away out of 
the closet, but, alas for his cunning calculations! 
straight into the arms of Isabel Dering, who was 
still on guard at the door. 


V. 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 

Sewing afternoon was always a time of excite- 
ment in School Number Seven. 

Twice in the week, the kindergarten games were 
given up, and the room was filled with groups of 
little chairs, each group gathered about a central 
chair of larger dimensions. Outside the door, the 
minor prophets were clamorous with a clamor that 
ceased only when the door opened and they swarmed 
inside. Within the room, the volunteer teachers 
were sorting out their classes, and there was leisure 
for Teacher and Miss Dering to stand at the door- 
way and watch the mob that shot past them. 

“I wonder if it is of any manner of use,” Miss 
Dering said thoughtfully. 

“What? Yes, Naomi, you can take Euth with 
you, if she will sit very still.” 

“This sewing.” 

“Of course it is good for them,” Teacher answered 
decidedly. “We aren’t likely to turn out many ex- 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 59 

perienced tailors ; but it is something to give them 
a notion of which end up to hold a needle, and that 
one piece of cloth sewed to another piece of cloth 
can be made to fill up a hole. I tried to insist on 
thimbles, but I had to give that up. Thimbles be- 
long to a later and more advanced stage of evolu- 
tion.” 

“ The Dombowski baby swallowed a thimble, last 
sewing day,” Miss Dering observed. 

“Isabel!” 

“ Yes, I was sorry, for it was one of our few little 
thimbles, and those small sizes are so hard to get.” 

Teacher looked horrified. Then she laughed. 

“ What about the baby ? ” 

“You can see for yourself.” Miss Dering pointed 
to Adam, who was just passing them with the baby 
in his arms. “Isn’t it surprising to find the boys 
so eager to sew? But, really, I felt a good deal 
worse about the thimble than I did about the baby, 
for Adam told me that it frequently swallowed but- 
tons. He didn’t seem to be in the least alarmed. 
Still, I thought I wouldn’t say anything about it 
till I saw whether it proved fatal.” 

“ I shouldn’t have known an easy moment. Do 
you suppose it will happen again? ” 


60 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“ You might punch holes in the thimbles and tie 
them to the teachers’ belts,” Miss Dering suggested 
flippantly. “Then, in case of accident, you would 
have a clue to the situation.” 

Teacher shook her head. 

“Isabel, I can’t classify you at all. You belong 
to no known species of slummer. Your speech is 
unorthodox in the extreme; but your deeds are 
adorable. Any one who can evolve Becky Keinstein 
to the use of a comb and garters has proved her 
right to exist. Farewell. I must go to my babies.” 

As a rule. Miss Dering took no regular class in 
sewing. There had been volunteers enough for the 
work, and she preferred to be free to play with the 
children in the yard or, in case of need, to substi- 
tute for some absent teacher. Now she strolled out 
to the yard to see what was happening there. A 
kindergartner was reading aloud under each awning, 
a third was perched on the edge of the sand bin, 
directing the construction of Morro Castle, and a 
fourth was preventing monopolies at the swings. 
Every one seemed busy, every one happy, even to 
Becky Keinstein, who was content to sit by the 
hour in one of the tiniest chairs and^ clasp a dolly 
to her elderly heart. Sometimes the dolly’s head 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 61 

was uppermost, sometimes its heels ; but mere ques- 
tions of anatomy mattered not to Becky. 

Miss Dering paused at her side. 

“Pretty dolly, Becky,” she said gayly. 

Becky nodded quite as gayly. 

“ Yes, Becky’s dolly. Teacher, see Becky’s hair ! ” 

And she turned herself about proudly to disclose 
the rough and stubby pigtail that stuck out ram- 
pantly from one corner of her head. 

With a word of praise. Miss Dering left her and 
crossed to the patch of shade where Toni was giving 
a private lesson in drawing to Carrie Luyckx. It 
had been a matter of some surprise to the powers 
that ruled over the yard of School Number Seven, 
when Toni had appeared, on the morning after the 
fray. Adam had come promptly; they had ex- 
pected him. But Toni had followed close upon his 
heels, although he had left the playground, the pre- 
vious afternoon, protesting loudly that the place 
should see him no more. 

During the still watches of that night. Teacher 
took plenty of time to think over the details of her 
long talk with Toni. It had been an explicit talk 
on both sides; yet, the more she thought of it. 
Teacher could not be at all sure that she had come 


62 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


off conqueror. For one moment, she had felt cer- 
tain of victory ; the next moment, she had been be- 
trayed into an irrepressible smile, and after that con- 
cession she had been unable to regain her lost 
advantage. The next morning, however, she felt 
some satisfaction in Toni’s return to the yard. It 
showed that her influence over him, her hold upon 
him, was strong enough to draw him back, even at 
the risk of being made to behave himself. 

Toni .was slightly subdued, that morning, and his 
white jumper was no more. In its place, he wore 
one which obviously had been constructed from the 
ruins of a university banner, and his back bore the 
mystic initial so ardently coveted in athletic circles. 
Long exposure to the elements had faded the origi- 
nal color to an imperfect harmony with his overalls ; 
but still its source was unmistakable. One other 
change in Toni was becoming apparent. There was 
a financial panic in Rose Street, that summer, and 
the paternal business was at a standstill. Between 
eating and being shaved, popular prejudice lay with 
the former alternative. As an indirect consequence. 
Toni’s hair was becoming visible. 

He looked up, as Miss Dering approached the lit- 
tle blackboard. 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 63 

“I wan’ ter sew,” he said abruptly. 

“You, Toni? What for? ” 

“Cos de udder fellers does.” 

“Then why didn’t you go in, when Miss Loomis 
called? ” 

“She never said nothin’ ter me.” 

“ No ; she said it to everybody. You could have 
gone.” 

“Sure?” 

“Of course. Wliy not? ” 

“She fired me out, de udder day.” 

“ Because you were naughty. You aren’t naughty 
now, Toni. Will you come? ” 

He eyed her distrustfully ; then he stuck his fist 
into her outstretched hand. 

At the door they met Teacher. 

“ I was just looking for yon, Isabel. There is a 
reporter here, and I must talk to him. Can you 
take my class ? ” 

“Of course. Toni is coming to it, and we are 
going to make an expert seamstress of him.” 

“That’s good. Are the hands clean, Toni? ” 

Toni spread out two grimy little paws for inspec- 
tion, and was promptly ordered to the washroom. 
Then, still at Miss Dering’s side, he threaded his 


64 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


way among the groups until he found himself in a 
low chair between Adam and Orpah Budesheim. 
Orpah was the healthiest of the Budesheims and the 
least lovable. She was a self-conscious child of four 
years, who had been spoiled by reason of her long 
brown curls and her thread of a soprano voice. She 
had a cunning trick of putting her head on one 
side and rolling up her great blue eyes, until even 
Teacher had yielded to her fascinations. Orpah was 
too young to sew; but she was a sort of honorary 
member of Teacher’s class, where she alternately 
sang and babbled, to her own great satisfaction. 

At Toni’s approach, she drew up her little skirts 
disdainfully. 

“I don’t wan’ to sit next him,” she protested. 

“Sit down, Toni,” Miss Dering said calmly; but 
Adam rebelled. 

“He’s as good as you,” he said sharply. 

Orpah looked at him askance. Then she made a 
sudden dash at his pink and yellow patchwork and 
jerked the squares apart. - 

“ Orpah ! ” Miss Dering’s tone was ominous, while 
she laid a restraining hand upon Adam’s shoulder. 

“What, ma’am? ” 

“You mustn’t do that again.” 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 65 

“Do what? ” Orpah’s eyes were at their widest, 
and her expression one of bland unconsciousness of 
evil. 

“Tear Adam’s work.” 

“I didn’t.” 

Adam started up aggressively; but Miss Dering 
held him back. 

“ I saw you, Orpah,” she said quietly. 

With a swift glance, Orpah assured herself that, 
far across the room in the advanced class, Naomi 
was too much absorbed in making a little petticoat 
for Euth to heed the scene. Naomi was the only 
person in the world whom Orpah really feared or 
loved. 

“You lie,” she said, with a certain dainty accent 
peculiarly her own. Then she added, with a side- 
long look from under her heavy lashes, “An’ I’ll 
kill you, if you tell me I lie.” 

“ Poor baby ! ” Miss Dering thought to herself ; 
but her voice was stern, as she answered, “Orpah, 
you can’t stay here any longer, after using such 
words. Go right out into the yard.” 

And Orpah went. 

Teacher stopped her, as she was dancing and 

singing along the hallway. 

5 


66 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“Why, Orpah, what are you doing here? ” 

“That other teacher fired me out,” she said airily. 
“ I don’ know why. Most peoples likes to see me 
round. ” 

“You see Eose Street occasionally produces one 
care-free child,” Teacher remarked to the reporter, 
as Orpah vanished through the open doorway. 

Miss Dering, meanwhile, was finding her hands 
more than full. Seven children were allowed in 
one class. Without Toni, there were seven; with 
Toni, there were apparently seventy times seven. 
To preside over the threading of seven sticky needles, 
•the tying of seven dingy knots, the “ sharpening ” of 
the seven aforesaid needles, and the untying of the 
many times seven unintentional knots, and to keep 
up a brisk fire of cheery talk the while : all this re- 
quired a person of steady poise. Add to this Toni. 
He never remembered having seen a needle before 
that hour. He examined it with a minute atten- 
tion, and then promptly lost it up the sleeve of his 
jumper. Found again and threaded by Miss Der- 
ing, he tied a succession of knots at the eye of the 
needle, to prevent future mishaps; and, by the time 
this was accomplished, he had lost his work. With 
infinite patience. Miss Dering hunted up the scrap 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 67 

of calico, untied the knots and took a few stitches by 
way of pattern for him to follow. Then Sadie Hasten - 
brend claimed her attention, and, for the moment, 
she forgot Toni. It was only for a moment, however. 
The next minute, she heard a gleeful chuckle. 

“Oh, ain’t dis funny? ” 

Turning abruptly, she discovered that Toni had 
tied himself into a knot as complicated as the one 
in his thread. With his feet curled up under him 
in his chair, he was holding his needle between his 
two great toes and pressing his work down over it 
with both hands. The chair was small ; Toni’s cen- 
tre of gravity was questionable. He balanced, for a 
moment; then he tilted over backward and landed 
in a heap at the very feet of Teacher, while out from 
the breast of his little jumper there fell a paper 
match-box whose ragged corners showed the sodden 
bits of cigar packed within. 

For one short instant. Teacher hesitated. By 
right of office, no real discipline should have fallen 
upon her shoulders. Miss Loomis and her assist- 
ants were there to keep the children in order and to 
deal with just such emergencies as this. At first, 
she was minded to shake herself free from any re- 
sponsibility in th6 matter. Why not? It was not 


68 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


her place to dispense justice, nor to speak the final 
“Thou shalt not.” Then she dismissed the tempta- 
tion. She picked up Toni and the box, and went 
away out of the room. 

“Now, Toni,” she said, when they were alone 
together; “what are these for? Do you smoke 
them?” 

As she spoke, she dropped down on her knees 
beside the child and took his hands into her own. 
Even then she looked down upon him, small morsel 
of depravity that he was. They formed a curious 
contrast together: Teacher, every yellow hair, every 
fold of her clothing dainty and orderly and spotless ; 
Toni soiled and sodden and besmudged of body as 
of soul. Yet there was no shrinking on Teacher’s 
part, no hint that she realized the vastness of the 
chasm between them. 

“No.” Toni hesitated before he replied to her 
question. “I don’ re’ly smoke ’em. Dat is, dere 
ain’t no fire comes out.” 

“What do you do with them, then? ” 

“Oh, I jus’ rolls ’em roun’ in my mouth an’ 
chews ’em,” he replied, staring critically up at her 
sailor hat. “I wasn’ goin’ ter chew dese,” he added 
unexpectedly, after another interval. 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 


69 


“ What were you going to do with them, then ? ” 
Toni eyed her gravely for a moment. 

“I was bringin’ ’em ter de teachers,” he answered. 
Teacher felt a sudden wild impulse to laugh ; but 
she struggled against it bravely. A smile now 
would cost her too much, so it was with a gravity 
equal to Toni’s own that she asked, — 

“Toni, do you ever really smoke? ” 

He nodded. 

“Yep, an’ drink, too.” 

“Drink what? ” 

“Whiskey.” 

“ Toni ! Where do you get it? ” 

“At de s’loons. Dey gives it ter me for runnin’ 
erran’s.” 

“And you like it? ” 

“Yep, it’s good.” 

If she had only left the case to Miss Loomis, after 
all! She had no notion how to proceed. Toni 
stood looking up at her with a debonair composure 
which made her feel indescribably young. A tem- 
perance lecture would be useless ; the very alphabet 
of such questions was unknown to the child. For 
the moment, the generations upon generations of 
different environment seemed to be pushing them 


70 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


apart and making her powerless to speak to him in 
any language which he could understand. And he 
was so little, and so naughty, and so fascinating, 
and so hardened. Deep down within him there was 
a tiny spot still unharmed. Now and then she had 
caught sight of it. Had he not championed the 
cause of Becky Keinstein? In a few year.®, that 
spot, too, would become like flint. How could she 
reach it and, breaking down the walls around it, 
give it a chance to grow? 

“Oh, Toni,” she cried despairingly; “how can 
you do such bad things? You aren’t a bad boy.” 

In her weakness. Teacher had gained unexpected 
strength. For a short instant, Toni’s eyes veiled 
themselves. Then he looked up perkily. 

“Ain’t I? Dey mostly says I is.” 

“Never mind if they do. You can show them 
that they are making a mistake.” 

Opposition of any kind was dear to Toni’s heart, 
and he asked eagerly, — 

“Show ’em dat dey lies? ” 

“Yes.” 

“How?” 

“ By being a good boy. ” 

Toni shrugged his shoulders. 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 


71 


“Do’ wan’ ter.” 

“Toni, what is a good boy? ” she asked abruptly. 

“Goin’ ter mission an’ wearin’ shoes an’ dyin’ 
w’en I’m a kid and not punchin’ Adam in de stum- 
mick,” he responded promptly. 

She laughed, this time with no fear of conse- 
quences, for Toni was utterly in earnest. 

“About Adam, yes. The others don’t count for 
much. What do you think I call a good boy? ” 

“Wot? ” Toni looked interested. 

“One that doesn’t get ugly, doesn’t fight nor 
smoke horrid ends of cigars, one that is clean and 
honest and brave.” 

“How brave?” he demanded. “Like de feller 
wid de snakes ? ” 

“ Like Cadmus ? Yes. ” 

His face fell. 

“I couldn’ be like him, Teacher. He was a jim 
dandy. Besides, I hain’t got no snakes.” 

“Yes, you have, Toni, and they are crawly ones; 
at least, they make me crawl.” 

“Don’t yer like snakes?” he inquired imperson- 
ally. 

“ No; not your kind. 

“Wot is my kind? ” 


72 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“Bad ways, Toni, and bad words.” 

“Dey ain’t snakes.” 

“ Yes, they are, dear, and you must fight them, or 
they will crawl all over you. I want to tell you a 
new story about Cadmus, Toni, one that nobody else 
will ever hear. It is just for you. When Cadmus 
fought the dragon — the snake, I mean — there was 
just one little spot in his whole body where, if the 
snake bit him, the bite would kill him. Again and 
again it flew at him; it bit him again and again; 
but it never hit that one little spot, much as it 
tried. At last, just as it had its head raised to 
strike that very place, Cadmus took it in his two 
hands and broke its back. You don’t see what that 
story has to do with it, Toni; perhaps you never 
will. No matter; I do, and I am going to 
play that you are Cadmus and have just killed the 
snake. Do you remember what became of Cadmus, 
Toni? ” 

“Licked everybody, an’ den busted de bank,” 
Toni responded. 

“ Would you like to be just like him? ” 

“Bet you!” 

“ Well, we will try to see what can be done to get 
you there. It won’t be fun, Toni, but good hard 


TONI INTERVIEWS TEACHER. 73 

work, with plenty of things in it you don’t like. 
Now, what are we going to do first? ” 

“Do’ know.” 

Teacher smiled. Even in the midst of her alle- 
gory she had realized that she was talking far over 
Toni’s head, yet she had gone on to the end, partly 
to gain time, partly to reason out to herself her own 
position. 

“ I’ll tell you. Don’t punch Ruth and the other 
babies ; don’t be naughty here in the yard, and don’t 
ever, ever touch another piece of a cigar.” 

Toni eyed her scornfully. To his mind her alle- 
gory had been literal history. 

“Dat ain’t wot Cadmus done.” 

“Not in the story. We don’t know what hap- 
pened first. But listen, Toni. There are better 
things than to be like Cadmus. Teacher tells you 
so, and she wants you to believe her. Good boys 
aren’t made in a minute, nor in a summer; but will 
you promise Teacher that you’ll try, all the rest of 
the summer and afterward, to be as true as you can, 
as kind to the little babies, and as generous to Adam 
and Naomi and Phillie? You’ve got it all in you, 
Toni; it only wants letting out. If you wish, you 
can help Teacher ever so much in keeping the yard 


74 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


orderly and in making the others have a good time. 
Will you help me, Toni? ” 

He looked up at her, quizzically at first, then 
more gravely. Then his eyes drooped. 

“Yep,” he said despondently; “I s’pose so; but I 
don’ see de fun in it all.” 


VI. 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 

The meanest mongrel in Eose Street might have 
felt himself insulted by hearing the weather termed 
dogdays, that summer. Even the up-town houses 
set in their broad lawns grew sticky and malo- 
dorous; down in Eose Street, the atmosphere was 
reeking. Inside the houses, the stuffy rooms were 
opened as far as might be to the outside air; but 
the outside air came in but sluggishly, damp, and 
disease-laden. Street-cleaning was at a low state 
of evolution, local public opinion' at a lower. It 
was easy to clear out the push-carts and the stalls 
by the simple method of dumping the spoiled mate- 
rial into the street. In vain the police interfered ; 
the piles of rubbish appeared and reappeared, and 
around them swarmed the children, searching to res- 
cue some eatable bits from the general ruin. The 
cleaning carts came through occasionally, so did the 
watering carts; but they were powerless to cope 


76 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


with the general noisomeness. Besides, there were 
long intervals between their comings. 

For the dwellers in Kose Street, there were de- 
grees of misery in the weather. July had been 
scorching ; but the heat was dry, therefore it was 
bearable. August swept down upon them in a hot, 
moist wave, which exhausted their already spent 
strength and reacted upon their nerves. The days 
they passed in a sort of apathy, rousing themselves 
now and then to quarrel fiercely together ; at night- 
fall, they emerged into a species of life, and for a 
few hours the street bore a semblance of its wonted 
activity. The elders congregated about the corner 
stalls where, all day long, the owners had dozed 
uninterruptedly, lying across their wares to prevent 
too much stealing. The children sat in rows along 
the curbstone, their bare feet in the gutter where the 
evening visit of the watering carts left little streams 
of sirupy thickness. Those who had been in the 
playground all day long were too drowsy, too tired 
with healthy play, to heed what was passing around 
them. The others, those who had shared the gen- 
eral daytime apathy, were all alert, listening to the 
flow of squalid talk around them, watching eagerly 
for the too frequent times when the patrol wagon 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 


77 


swept down among them and carried away a father 
or mother or, perhaps, one of their child compan- 
ions. 

And, meanwhile, the babies were dying fast. 
The infant death rate in Eose Street was always at 
its highest in mid-summer. It was small wonder. 
For the mothers, it was almost unbearable to stny 
inside the little rooms where the very paper on the 
walls perspired and slowly loosed itself ; where, from 
week’s end to week’s end, the beds were never made 
up, the table never cleared of remnants of the stale 
pastry and fruit which formed the greater part of 
their living. Generations ago, ambition had died 
out from these women ; it belonged to the days of 
peasant homes in the country; there was no place 
for it in these stuffy dens. All that was required 
of them by the social law of their district was to 
shake out the curtains and “ tidies ” of their parlors ; 
then betake themselves to the street doorway, to sit 
on the steps and call to one another, while the ba- 
bies made straight for the roadway in search of what 
they might devour. Then came dysentery; then 
the undertaker. 

Like the Budesheims, there were exceptions to 
this rule ; but, like all exceptions, they only served 


78 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


to emphasize the fact of the existence of the rule. 
And yet upon the Budesheims also, August was lay- 
ing a heavy hand. ^ 

“I’m so tired,” Naomi confessed, one day. “It 
was so hot in the house that Euth couldn’t sleep, 
an’ my papa an’ me got up early an’ took her out 
on the fire escape.” 

“How early, Naomi? ” Miss Bering asked. 

“Two o’clock; but she went to sleep just beauti- 
ful.” Naomi clasped her hands rapturously, as she 
spoke. 

“ But why didn’t you go back to bed, and let your 
papa hold her? ” 

“He was tired an’ wanted to go to sleep. Be- 
sides, she likes me best. When he’s mindin’ her, 
she always takes my hand an’ holds on awful tight.” 

“She is your baby, isn’t she, Naomi? ” 

Naomi laughed and nodded, as she put her hand 
under the sharp little chin and turned the blue- 
veined face toward the light. Euth gave a weak, 
querulous cry, however, and Naomi gently, too 
gently for so young a child, let the curly head drop 
back against her shoulder once more. 

“Yes, she’s my baby,” she answered contentedly. 
“She’s awful sick; but she ain’t too sick to cry for 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 


79 


her Naomi. She won’t let me leave her, a single 
minute.” 

“But when do you rest?” Miss Dering asked, 
with a swift recollection of her own coddled self at 
Naomi’s age. 

“Nights, after they’re in bed,” Naomi responded. 
“All day long, it’s Naomi this and Naomi that; but, 
after supper when Euth and Orpah are in bed, then’s 
my happy hour. Euth cries a good deal now, 
but it’s only because she’s so sick. She’s gettin’ 
better, though. My papa said the doctor told him 
Euth would have died, this summer, if I couldn’t have 
brought her here, every day. ” 

“And you had her here, all day yesterday, and 
held her in your arms from two o’clock till morn- 
ing?” Miss Dering questioned kindly. “And now 
you are carrying her again. You mustn’t hold her 
any longer, Naomi; your arms will break off. Toni, 
run in and bring out a carriage. There is one left 
in the hall, and I want it for Naomi.” 

Toni looked up from his jackstones. 

“I do* wan’ ter,” he returned coolly. 

“But Naomi is waiting.” 

“ Let her git it herself, den. I ain’t takin’ care 
er no kids.” 


80 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“Toni!” 

Toni looked up hurriedly. Then, quite as hur- 
riedly, he went scurrying off toward the door. He 
had seen in Miss Dering’s merry eyes an expression 
he had never known till then; but, more potent 
sight than that, directly behind Miss Dering stood 
Teacher, and it was Teacher’s voice that had spoken 
the last word. He obeyed ; but he grumbled while 
he obeyed. He was still grumbling, while Miss 
Dering put Euth into the carriage and drew it up 
beside a bench in a shady corner of the yard. 

“We can’t have any tired little girls, this after- 
noon,” she said then. “ You will be close beside 
Euth, and you can hear her if she stirs ; but I think 
she will drop to sleep in a few minutes.” 

But before Euth’s lids had drooped, Naomi was 
wandering through a cool and flowery dreamland, a 
veritable greenwood where the sparrows decked 
themselves with strange and wondrous colors. No 
surer proof of the child’s utter exhaustion could 
have been found than that she was able to drop off, 
that morning, for the whole playground was agog 
with excitement. Vague rumors of a coming treat 
were flying about, and even the most stolid of the 
children were elated and correspondingly irritable. 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 81 

No one knew just what was in store for them; but 
the mere hint of some unwonted frolic made the 
usual amusements flat and stale by comparison. 
Teacher and Miss Dering had been at the play- 
ground, all the morning, now holding low-voiced 
colloquies with Miss Loomis, now receiving brown 
paper parcels at the gate and swiftly stowing them 
away in a closet with a lock on the door, and now 
descending upon a group who wrangled loudly .over 
the possession of a dismantled doll or a turn at the 
swing. Toward noon. Miss Dering’s presence of 
mind forsook her. 

“ When do I git in ? ” Phillie Luyckx was de- 
manding of Orpah Budesheim, while he shook the 
swing fiercely to and fro. 

“When I git out,” she answered pertly. “Me an’ 
Yetta’s swingin’ now, an’ we want you to swing us. ” 

“Not if I know it,^’ he returned. “It’s my own 
swing now. You’ve been in here, all day.” 

From the shadow of a yellow and flowery hat, 
Yetta eyed him through the hole in the brim. The 
hole was skewered together with a pin and a large 
needle ; but the edges sagged a little and offered a 
convenient loophole for Yetta’s languid, liquid eyes. 

“Phillie, I’ll hit yer,” she said serenely. 

6 


82 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“ Yer dassent." 

It was at this point that Miss Dering intervened. 
She had already extricated Phillie from seven disa- 
greements, and her patience was exhausted. 

“Phillie,” she said sternly; “go straight into the 
kindergarten room and tell Miss Loomis I sent you. 
We can’t have any bad little boys going with us, 
this afternoon.” 

Going ! Like wildfire, the tidings spread among 
the minor prophets that Miss Dering had said that 
they were going somewhere. Then it was true, 
even as rumor had predicted it, that a treat of some 
kind was in store for them ; that, unless they were 
good, very good, they would be left behind. And 
such is the nature of childhood that straightway 
they became tenfold worse than before, until in self- 
defence Miss Loomis closed the yard, that noon, 
fully half an hour earlier than the law allowed. 

After the first battle with her own vanity, it 
mattered not to a certain pretty girl that she went 
away to the mountains, that summer, dressed in her 
last year’s tailor suit. She found that life was 
quite endurable to her, her friends quite as devoted 
as in past years. It mattered greatly, however, to 
four hundred excited youngsters when, early that 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 


83 


afternoon, a procession of six empty street cars came 
down the track and stopped at the gate of School 
Number Seven. 

“ Yes, it is a picnic,” Teacher answered, while she 
helped Miss Loomis and Miss Dering to stow away 
the brown paper parcels under the seats. “Yes, 
Adam, the babies can go, too. Now, Miss Loomis, 
if we are ready, you can unlock the gate.” 

Inside the gate, formed in line by the assistants, 
the children were prancing and shouting excitedly. 
Even as rumor had predicted, it had come to pass. 
Not only were they going somewhere, but they were 
going in the trolley-cars, to many of them a new 
and untried means of locomotion. The secret had 
been kept well ; had it not been for Miss Dering’s 
incautious word, no one would have suspected the 
meaning of the innocent-looking brown parcels. As 
it was, the mere hint of a treat had sufficed to bring 
the minor prophets out in full force, and most of 
them were in festal array to do honor to the event. 
Adam had on a clean blue jumper, and his hair had 
been deluged with water and smoothed with the 
coarser teeth of the comb. Yetta had shed the 
ragged brim of her hat; Orpah Buddesheim stag- 
gered under the weight of one of her father’s hand- 


84 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


kerchiefs pinned by the exact middle to her left 
shoulder, while Carrie Luyckx eclipsed them all in 
glory by a string of huge blue china beads and a 
petticoat made of the better portions of an old lace 
curtain. For obvious reasons connected with hu- 
man vanity, Carrie had accidentally tucked the hem 
of her dress skirt through her pockethole. Else, 
why have a lace petticoat at all ? 

The gate swung back, there was a rush, a shout, 
a scrabble; then a chorus of voices, a fugue-like 
chorus, with numerous differing themes. 

“I’m goin’ ter ride in Teacher’s car! Oh, can 
we sing all we wants ter? Gee, I’ll bet you’ll be 
scairt w’en dey begins to go fast ! W’ich is Teacher’s 
car? Oh, look at de flags! Flags! Dere’s pea- 
nuts in de bags under de front seat ! Git out, you’re 
scrougin’ me ! Naomi, Naomi, come in here ! ” 

But Naomi shook her head. 

“I’m goin’ to ride in Teacher’s car,” she an- 
nounced. 

“She’s cornin’ in here; ain’t yer. Teacher? ” 

Teacher looked up and laughed at the clamor. 

“We’ll see,” she said blithely. “Perhaps I shall 
ride in them all.” 

As she spoke, she felt a pull at her skirt. Turn- 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 


85 


ing, she saw Toni by her side. He had made no 
change in his dress for the occasion ; but it was ap- 
parent, nevertheless, that he had sought to improve 
his appearance. The usual dusky circle about his 
mouth had vanished. Across his cheek bones a 
high-water mark showed plainly the extent of his 
ablutions, and a patch of dried soapsuds, lying in 
the lee of his nose like driftweed in the cranny of 
the rock, marked the method he had taken to beau- 
tify himself. Whatever the achievement. Teacher 
recognized the intention with pleasure. 

"Well, Toni?” she asked. 

" Well, nothin’,” he responded with equal brevity. 

“ Did you want me ? ” 

“Yep. I’m jes’ bangin’ on ter yer, so’s’t I kin 
set next yer, w’en we goes.” 

She smiled at the unconscious compliment. 

“ So you shall, because you have tried to be a nice, 
clean Toni, to-day. Let me see, it will be a few 
minutes before I can get in. Don’t you think it 
would be a good idea for you to run into the wash- 
room and clean your feet and legs a little ? ” 

He shook his head. 

“Yer’d go widout me.” 

“No; I’ll wait.” 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“An’ yer won’ let none of de udders git beside 
yer? ” 

“No.” 

“Honest?” 

“Honest.” 

He looked up at her searchingly ; then he turned 
and sped away through the gate. He was gone 
only for a short time, however; but, so far as he 
knew how, he had done her bidding. To be sure, 
the tide- mark was only at his ankle bones; but a 
low tide was better than no tide at all, and Teacher 
was content, as she saw the child wriggle into the 
crack between herself and Naomi in the forward car. 

It was a wonderful ride, as wonderful to Teacher, 
perhaps, as it was to the ecstatic children. Song 
followed song, died away into a buzz of talk, then 
broke out into song once more, shrill and happy and 
discordant. To be sure, with six carloads of chil- 
dren carolling at the top of their lungs as many dif- 
ferent songs in as many different keys, it was small 
wonder that the very horses in the streets shied as 
the cars whizzed past them. Hosie, on the fore- 
most seat of the foremost car, was waving a flag; 
but Toni felt no envy of him. In a sudden access 
of gentleness, new to him, yet feeling very comfort- 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 


87 


able, after all, he was cuddled down beside Teacher 
with his pudgy hand tucked under hers as it lay in 
her lap. He had never been on a car before. The 
swift, free motion had terrified him at first, and he 
had nestled against Teacher in a sudden longing for 
protection. Afterward, he had found himself so 
comfortable that he saw no use in stirring. 

“Teacher,” Adam asked abruptly, screwing him- 
self around until the baby’s head was in danger of 
being severed from the body; “does yer live in a 
big house ? ” 

“Not very.” 

“As big as dat?” He pointed to a farmhouse 
beside the road. 

“Yes.” 

“Who else lives wid yer? ” 

Teacher looked surprised at his sudden interest 
in her domestic surroundings. 

“My father and mother and my brother.” 

“Yes; but who else? ” Adam persisted. 

“ Cheese it, Adam ! Turn roun’ an’ look after yer 
kiddie,” Toni protested, for he had no mind to allow 
Teacher’s attention to be diverted from her own 
seatful. 

“Nobody else,” Teacher answered. 


88 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“Not any udder families? ” 

“No.” 

“Not even one, up-stairs?” 

“No.” 

“ Not anybody else in de whole tenement ! Whoo ! 
Yer mus’ be peaches to git on wid. Dere ! Sit up 
an' look at de cows an’ t’ings, an’ stop yer yellin’ ! ” 
The last command was addressed, not to Teacher, 
but to the baby, and Adam was forced to turn his 
attention to his young charge again. 

Toni, meanwhile, was staring up at Teacher with 
wide eyes. 

“ Does yer live all alone in de house ? ” 

“With my family, yes.” 

“Can’t yer git any boarders?” he asked sympa- 
thetically. 

But the wave of song rose around them once 
more, and it kept on, shrill and strong, while the 
procession of cars swept out from the city streets, 
rushed through the pretty open fields, all cool and 
green under the arching trees, over a racing, chatter- 
ing brook, past a farmhouse or two, past more fields 
where the cows turned their heads to stare placidly 
after the chorus of moos that greeted them, then 
jerked around a sharp curve, and then — 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 89 

“ Oh, de sea ! De sea ! Dat’s de ocean ! ” shrieked 
a semi- chorus made up from those who had been 
upon previous excursions. 

Sure enough, there was the gleaming, sail-dotted 
ocean; and, right in the foreground, there was a 
broad strip of sand which put to shame the crowded 
bin in the yard of School Number Seven. At home 
in Rose Street, the mothers and babies were gasping 
for breath in the heavy heat; up in the mountains, 
a girl in a last year’s tailor suit was on the box seat, 
ready to start off for the choicest coaching party of 
the season ; down by the seashore, four hundred chil- 
dren were prancing along the beach, half beside 
themselves with the breeze and the splash of the 
waves and the myriad wonders of the strange new 
scene. 

After the brown paper parcels had been opened 
and the bananas and biscuits had vanished, Toni and 
Phillie strayed back again to the edge of the water. 
Naomi had found a shell or two, and Hosie was the 
proud owner of a horseshoe crab. Toni felt that 
the day would be imperfect for him without similar 
treasures, and Phillie had invited himself to join in 
the search. Far up the beach they came upon 
Becky Keinstein. 


90 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“ Wot yer got, Becky ? ” Phillie called from afar, 
for Becky’s skirt was sagging from her hands in a 
dripping pouch. 

“See what Becky’s found,” she said. 

“Let’s look.” Phillie ran up and pulled open the 
folds of her skirt. “Ah — h^ — h, Toni, here’s all de 
shells we wants.” 

“ Go ’way ! ” Becky gathered up the folds of her 
skirt, as Phillie made a dive after her treasures. 

“Go ’way, yerself! Gimme some of ’em, Becky. 
I hain’t got none.” 

“No; Becky wants ’em.” She backed away as 
she spoke. 

“Yer can’ have ’em all, den.” 

“ Let her alone ! ” Toni commanded sharply. 

“ Sha’n’t. She’s got enough for her ’n’ us, too. 
Ketch hold er one side, Toni, an’ I’ll git de udder.” 

“ Shut up ! ” Toni smote Phillie upon the ear. 
“Run, Becky!” he commanded. “Scoot! Phil, yer 
let her go. I’ll hit yer, if yer touch her wid one of 
yer blame fingers.” 

But Phillie was in no mood to listen to his words. 
Undvdy elated that, after all his sins of the morn- 
ing, he had yet been allowed to join the expedition, 
he had been devoting himself to the study of just 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 


91 


how naughty he could be, without bringing punish- 
ment upon his head. So far, he had been unable 
to elude the vigilant eye of Miss Loomis. Now he 
felt that his time was come. 

“ Le’ me be, Toni ! Git away ! Becky, if yer don’ 
gimme yer shells. I’ll swipe ’em, an’ t’row yer in de 
watter, too. Den de fishes’ll eat yer, an’ — ” 

“Shut up! Yer scarin’ her! ’Tain’t no sech 
t’ing, Becky. Yer jes’ run for Teacher licketty 
split, an’ I’ll do him.” 

“Will yer?” 

“Kun, Becky!” 

In confusion, Becky stared from one boy to the 
other. Then some vague recollection of a far-off 
day in Eose Street drifted across the dim mirror of 
her mind. She trusted herself to Toni’s advice and 
she started to run. Phillie was too quick for her, 
however. With a well-aimed thrust of his foot he 
tripped Becky, and she fell sidewise into the edge 
of the waves, while her hoard of shells scattered in 
all directions. Phillie pounced upon them and 
crammed them into his pockets, too happy in the 
success of his ruse to heed the approach of his foe, 
But Toni was upon him. There was a shout and a 
splash. Then Phillie went sprawling forward into 


92 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


the water, and Toni turned to offer a helping hand 
to Becky as she clumsily floundered to her feet. 

From far up the beach, Teacher and Miss Dering 
had seen the fray, and, in an incredibly short time, 
they bore down upon the dripping group. Instinc- 
tively Teacher pounced upon Toni as the aggressor, 
for it was not in vain that she had dealt with him 
during the past four weeks. 

" Toni, what were you doing ? ” 

Toni started and stared up into their accusing 
faces. If his small heart thrilled with righteous 
rage at finding himself unjustly condemned, he 
contrived to conceal the fact to a remarkable de- 
gree. 

“Doin’ nothin’,” he replied calmly, as he stooped 
and began to squeeze the water from the legs of his 
overalls. 

“Did, too!” Phillie said explosively. “He t’ run 
me inter de watter.” 

Toni flounced about to face his enemy. 

“Wot for did I do it? ” he demanded. 

“Oh, — ’cause — ” 

“’Cause nothin’. Tell, if yer wan’ ter, yer 
sneak ! ” 

“Toni!” 


TONI GOES TO THE SEA. 


93 


“Well, he is dat. Let him tell, if he wan’s ter. 
If he don’, I will.” 

Obviously Toni was no hero of child fiction, at 
least, not of the type who suffers for another’s sins, 
rather than betray a comrade. 

“Telltale!” 

Quite as obviously Phillie was no model child. 

“Ah — h — h, go it, Becky!” he added, as Becky, 
seeing the attention concentrated in other direc- 
tions, turned and scurried up the beach. 

Toni watched her with an air of impartial inter- 
est. When she had vanished behincf a tuft of 
bushes, he looked straight up into Teacher’s eyes. 

“Well, yer see,” he explained; “’twas dis way. 
Phillie he was tryin’ ter swipe Becky’s shells. 
She’s a fool, an’ it’s mean to scrap wid her, so I 
jus’ up an’ fired Phillie inter de watter, soused him 
all over.” He giggled at the memory. “ ’Twas aw- 
ful funny ter see him w’en he struck. Yer can lick 
me, if yer wan’ ter. I’ve had my fun wid him, an’ he 
w^on’ swipe Becky’s t’ings in a hurry ag’in, I bet.” 
Then, of a sudden, the merriment faded from his face. 
“’Tain’t no sort er use. Teacher,” he said gloomily. 

“ Yer told me I wusn’ ter scrap no more, an’ now I’ve 
laid for Phillie an’ knocked de stufhn’s out’n him.” 


VII. 


TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI. 

Incongruously enough, the mmor prophets were 
engaged in a potato race. 

“ What is the use of our stimulating their artistic 
sense with dolls and picture books ? ” Isabel Dering 
had said, that morning. “They can’t have them 
when they go away from here, at least, not under 
the existing state of things, so why should we train 
them to feel that life without toys isn’t worth liv- 
ing?” 

“What are you going to do about it?” Teacher 
asked imperturbably. 

“ It depends upon what we are trying to do. If 
we are here to teach them the gospel of sweetness 
and light, have all the Paris dolls you can get. If 
we’re trying to show them how to have a good, 
wholesome time as they go along, it strikes me that 
it would be well to give them a notion of some 
plays they could have in Pose Street with the mate- 











Xti 








* •( ^ 





TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI 


95 


rials at hand. All in all, I think I would combine 
the two methods.” 

They were standing beside the kindergarten ring, 
where Orpah Budesheim sat in the middle, rocking 
to sleep a doll nearly as large as herself. In a cir- 
cle around her knelt the children, singing their little 
song : 

“ Rockaby, baby, the moon is a cradle, 

A white, silver cradle swung up in the sky.” 

Many of the little faces were grave and intent. It 
was impossible for them not to enter into the spirit 
of the lullaby, when the dolly was so large and 
beautiful, and when the waxen lids drooped so natu- 
rally over the staring blue eyes. The only doll of 
her kind in the yard, she was kept for just such oc- 
casions as this, and it was not strange that the vivid 
imaginations of the children should endow her with 
all manner of human attributes. Accordingly, their 
voices sank lower and lower, and thrilled with a 
note of true mother love which was indescribably 
winning to lookers-on. 

Orpah alone was inclined to be frivolous. She 
had made a succession of pretty pictures, as her 
curly head bent over the doll in her arms, and her 
sidelong glances had been quick to discover the ad- 


96 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


miration written on Miss Dering’s face. Unfortu- 
nately, Orpah had misinterpreted the signs. The 
smile of appreciation she had mistaken for one of 
amusement, and at once she had begun to play to 
the gallery, waggling the doll’s legs in time to the 
song, and then slapping it violently when the re- 
frain sank away into silence. 

“Orpah is getting spoiled by too much attention,” 
Teacher remarked, as they turned away. 

“Yes,” Miss Dering assented dryly; “and she is 
taking it for granted that she and that particular 
doll are necessary for the success of the lullaby.” 

And from the talk which followed, it came to 
pass that the minor prophets were having a potato 
race. 

“ How many of you brought potatoes ? ” Teacher 
asked, that afternoon. “ That is good. Now I am 
going to choose a captain to see fair play. I 

think ” After her usual fashion, she hesitated 

and let her eyes rove over the group. “ I think I 
shall ask — Toni Valovick to be the captain. No, 
Toni; wait. You can’t race. You are to measure 
the ground and say when to begin.” 

“ But I brung a tater, too. ” 

“Yes, I see; and be careful of it, Toni, or it 


TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI. 


97 


won’t be good to cook, when we are through with 
it. Now, if you are ready.” 

Toni marshalled his forces swiftly and, it must 
be confessed, with a high hand. Quick to catch the 
point of the race and its inherent difficulty, he laid 
out the course with some skill, and chose his con- 
testants with a good deal of shrewd judgment of 
their powers. Hosie and Phillie he mated, Sollie 
and Bennie, and Adam and Naomi Budesheim. 

“I don’ wan’ ter play wid no girl,” Adam grum- 
bled. 

“Bet she can lick yer,” Hosie prophesied. 

His prediction was fulfilled. When Toni called 
time, Naomi had broken the record and had retired, 
victorious, to the handlebar of Euth’s carriage once 
more. 

“She’s a good un,” Hosie said triumphantly. 
“Didn’ I say she’d lick yer? ” 

“I wa’n’ half tryin’,” Adam protested. “Wan’ 
ter try ag’in, Naomi? ” 

“ Nah ; yer had yer turn, an’ ’twa’n’ no good to 
yer. Let somebody else try,” Hosie returned. 

“Do you want to try it again, Naomi? ” Teacher 
asked, laughing. “The boys don’t want to give in 

that they are beaten by a girl.” 

7 


98 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


Naomi had just lifted Kuth to the ground. She 
looked down at her small sister and hesitated. 
Teacher interpreted the hesitation. 

“Won’t Euth stay with Orpah? ” she asked. 

But Orpah was in the corner, playing dolls with 
Carrie Luyckx, and she was not minded to come to 
Naomi’s assistance. 

“No matter, Naomi,” Miss Dering said; “I’ll 
take Euth. Come here, Euth, and see these pretty 
pictures.” 

As deliberately as if the whole assembly were not 
waiting for her, Naomi led Euth across the yard to 
the awning and saw her settled in Miss Dering’s 
lap. 

“Who will race with Naomi, this time? ” Teacher 
was asking, meanwhile. 

“I kin beat her, if I try,” Adam protested again. 

“So kin I.” Toni’s face was wishful. “I hain’t 
done it yit, an’ I brung a tater.” Plainly he did 
not appreciate the honor to which Teacher had pro- 
moted him, and regarded it only as so much drudg- 
ery in her service. 

She nodded. 

“ Very well, Toni. You can take your turn now. 
Are you ready ? ” 


TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI. 


99 


Then the minor prophets ranged themselves in 
two lines and, in the open space between, the race 
began. Party spirit ran high, for both the cham- 
pions were well known in Pose Street circles, both 
had their followings. 

“Go it, Toni! Naomi’s gittin’ there! Toni! 
Toni ! Naomi ! Naomi wins ! No ; Toni’s the 
feller ! Ah — h — h ! ” The shouts ended in a long- 
drawn cry. 

Had Naomi tripped and fallen? Why didn’t she 
jump up? Was she sulky because Toni was a frac- 
tion of a minute ahead? She lay quite still beside 
her oveiTurued dish of potatoes, with Ruth, who 
had broken away from Miss Dering, tugging franti- 
cally at her skirts. Then the clamor broke out 
afresh, — 

“ She done it a-purpose ! She knowed Toni’d win 
in a minute, an’ she went tricky. Sneak! Oh, 
sneak ! She knowed Toni’d git it, an’ she shammed 
an’ spoiled de whole t’ing. Naomi’s a sneak ! 
Pull her up, Toni. She’s stole de race on yer.” 

Toni faced the last speaker angrily. 

“Shut up! She didn’.” 

“She swiped yer race. ’Twas your’n, an’ she 
knowed it, an’ tipped her dish over, purpose.” 


1 rtfC. 


100 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“She did not. She fell.” 

“She’s shammin’, I tell yer.” 

“ Lie ! ” In the heat of the moment, Toni forgot 
his new-made resolutions of peace. His eyes blazed, 
and he danced over the ground like a kernel of corn 
in a popper. 

“ I wouldn’ have a girl beat me, w’en she had ter 
cheat ter do it,” Hosie observed philosophically. 
“ Yer’d ’a’ had de game, if she’d er played fair.” 

In a second, the mortarboard cap went whizzing 
over the fence, and the spectacles followed it. Sea- 
sons of weight alone prevented Hosie from following 
the spectacles, for Toni was in a frame of mind 
which halted only at the impossible. It was not 
that Hosie’s remark was any worse than the others 
which had gone before ; it was only that Toni’s tem- 
per had reached the boiling point at the instant of 
Hosie’s speaking, and that Hosie’s fat, placid per- 
sonality had been the first object in his way. 

Teacher laid a restraining hand upon his shoul- 
der. 

“That is all the racing for now,” she said. “Eun 
away, all of you. Some day, perhaps, we’ll try it 
again.” Then she turned to Toni. “Come into the 
kindergarten room by and by,” she said, too low for 


TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI. 


101 


her voice to reach the ears of the others. “ I may 
want you to help me to put away some things 
there. ” 

Inside the kindergarten room, she found Miss 
Dering quieting Ruth, while Naomi sat beside them, 
looking even more white and wan than was usual 
with her. 

“What do you suppose it was?” Teacher asked 
anxiously, as Naomi slowly led Ruth out into the 
yard again. 

“Oh, she just fainted,” Miss Dering said lightly. 
“The sun was too hot for her, perhaps.” 

But Teacher shook her head. 

“She is a delicate little thing, Isabel. I wish 
that were all.” 

Miss Dering looked up sharply. 

“ What do you think it was ? ” she asked. 

“I don’t think; I am only afraid. She had been 
running so fast; then, all at once, she turned white, 
blue- white, and dropped. I have seen that color 
once or twice before, when she has been carrying 
Ruth, and it has worried me.” 

“You mean her heart? ” 

But Teacher was spared the necessity for a reply, 
for a small figure appeared in the doorway. 


102 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“Goin’ ter lick me, Teacher?” he inquired, with 
an air of wishing to get through a bad matter as 
speedily as possible. 

“What for, Toni?” Teacher asked, while Miss 
Dering withdrew to a window near by. 

“Scrappin’ ag’in,” he replied, with his customary 
terseness. 

“ Why, no. ” Teacher had intended to lead up to 
the matter by degrees. She felt as if Toni were 
rather forcing her hand. 

“Yer kin, if yer wan’ ter,” he returned dispas- 
sionately. “That blame Hosie Wikrowski ” 

He hesitated, as he met her rebuking glance. 

In her turn, Teacher also hesitated. She had 
meant to give a little talk upon chivalry, and to 
wind up with a generous commendation of Toni’s 
championship of Naomi. She had expected, for the 
present, at least, to ignore the rest of the matter. 
All of a sudden, it refused to be ignored. As usu- 
ally happened, Toni had grasped the bull by the 
horns and dragged him out into the very middle of 
the arena. How could she contrive to get the beast 
out of sight again so deftly that Toni would not 
notice the operation? She temporized. 

“Never mind that now, Toni. We’ll talk about 


TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI. 103 

that by and by, after you have been over the fence 
to get Hosie’s cap.” 

“Adam done dat,” he returned composedly; “ So 
yer may as well fire ahead wid wot yer got ter 
say.” 

At the window, Miss Dering gave a sudden ex- 
plosive cough. Teacher looked at her despairingly. 
If she would only go away and take her sense of 
humor with her! 

“Toni,” she said gravely; “you aren’t all good 
yet. It will be some time before you are, I’m 
afraid. But you aren’t all bad, either.” 

Toni looked at her with owlish solemnity. 

“Dat’s good,” he observed, with an air of encour- 
agement. 

“I was glad when you took Naomi’s part,” 
Teacher went on, sternly regardless of the shaking 
figure by the window “Naomi is a dear little girl, 
and she was very ill. She wouldn’t cheat, for the 
sake of winning a dozen races, When the others 
all turned on her, it was good that you stood by her, 
even when it was your race.” 

Toni shrugged his shoulders. 

“I don’ scrap wid no girls,” he said. “W’ere ’d 
be de fun? Dey can’ scrap back for a cent.” 


104 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


Launcelot might have phrased it otherwise; still, 
the spirit was the same. 

“Yes, and Naomi is a brave little girl,” Teacher 
assented heartily. 

“So’s Becky. She don’ know nothin’, an’ she 
knocked de stuffin’s out’n Phillie, de day after de 
picnic,” Toni interposed. “Naomi coiildn’ do dat.” 

“ No ; but there are other sorts of bravery. Think 
of the way Naomi takes care of Euth and carries 
her in her arms, such little arms, Toni, and such a 
heavy Euth! How would you like to do that? ” 

“I don’ wan’ no kids roun’.” 

“But Naomi has to have them.” 

“Maybe she likes ’em. She’s use’ ter ’em; I 
ain’t.” 

“Toni,” Teacher was fired with a sudden idea; 
“you haven’t any baby at your house. Why don’t 
you help Naomi to look out for Euth? ” 

Toni lowered his head and peered up at her from 
beneath his long lashes. 

“Naomi’s a peach. Teacher; but I can’ stan’ no 
kiddies.” 

“But couldn’t you do it to help, dear? ” 

“Naomi don’ need no help. She’s use’ ter it.” 

“That doesn’t make it any easier.” 


TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI. 


105 


Toni looked up at her dubiously. 

“Do yer wan’ me ter do it, Teacher? ” 

“ Yes ; but that isn’t the real reason you should 
do it.” 

“W’y not? I do’ know but I’d do it, if yer said 
I’d got ter. I don’ wan’ ter, though. I hain’t got 
no use for kiddies, an’ I’d ruther not have nothin’ 
ter do wid ’em. Can’t yer ask me somethin’ 
easy ? ” 

“I’m not asking it, Toni; and, if you did it just 
because I asked you, it wouldn’t count for much. 
It is good to help Naomi with her baby ; it was 
good to take her part. It is ever so much more to 
do it because it was good, than just because Teacher 
asks you.” 

With his brown toes, he traced the line of a crack 
in the floor. 

“ Would Cadmus er done it? ” he asked. 

“Cadmus? Oh, yes; I remember. I think he 
would, Toni. He wasn’t selfish about most things.” 

“Wot’s selfish?” 

“ To think only about the things you like, and not 
be willing to do anything else, — not to help Naomi.” 

Toni sighed. 

“I reckon de kiddies is my snakes,” he observed. 


106 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“ I hain’t busted ’em yit. Won’t somethin’ else do, 
Teacher? ” 

His accent was desponding, and Teacher relin- 
quished her short-lived golden dream of seeing Toni 
harnessed to Kuth’s carriage. 

“There are other things, Toni,” she answered; 
“ever so many of them. I only spoke of this be- 
cause it was something you could do, and because 
Naomi needs your help.” 

“Naomi’s all right,” he returned. “She ain’t so 
good in a scrap as Becky ; but she’s got more sense. 
I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ against Naomi, Teacher; it’s 
only de kids. I ain’t use’ ter handlin’ ’em, an’ dey 
yells at everythin’, an’ I’m ’fraid dey’ll bust, if I 
touch ’em. But Naomi, — she ain’t no frien’ er 
mine. I hain’t no sort er use for her, nor for any 
girl dat can’ use her fisties. But w’en I see her 
down on her taters an’ dey was all yellin’ at her, I 
fought I’d have a little yellin’, myself, an’ I guess 
dey knows by dis time dat, w’en I yells, I mean 
wot I’s yellin’ at, too.” 

There was a prolonged pause. Toni had appar- 
ently closed the discussion, and Teacher was at a 
loss how to reopen it. 

“ Dat all ? ” Toni inquired, after an interval. 


TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI. 


107 


‘‘Yes, I think so,” she answered weakly. Then 
she looked down into the very depths of his eyes. 

And thank you, Toni,” she said quite low. 

And Toni understood. 

“Isabel,” she said to Miss Dering, when they 
were alone once more. 

“Well?” 

“ The spirit of chivalry isn’t dead. I have hopes 
of our Toni.” 

“Obviously.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ Did it occur to you that you formally thanked 
him for buffeting the portly Hosie ? ” 

“You are dense, Isabel. Toni understood me.” 

“Apparently you understood him. His words and 
deeds failed to agree, so it was no mean achieve- 
ment to get to the root of the matter. He cornered 
you beautifully, though.” 

Teacher laughed. 

“ He generally does. I can always count on his 
saying the most unexpected thing, so it is of no use 
for me to plan my lectures in advance. But, mark my 
words, Isabel, Toni will astonish us all, some day.” 

“By adopting Kuth? I fairly gasped at that 
idea.” 


108 


PI^YGROUND TONI. 


“He may do even that He loves the unex- 
pected, as I say, and he is such a contradictious 
little mortal that the mere fact of having refused 
may lead him to take her under his protection. 
There is no accounting for Toni Come, I must go 
home. We are to have some people to dinner, to- 
night, and I must put on my state array.” 

She led the way into the yard where the prophets 
were drawn up in line and exchanging mysterious 
whispers. As she approached, she was conscious of 
a sensation, and Hosie Wikrowski in his restored 
mortarboard stepped out in front of the line. 

“Now, fellers!” he shouted; and then he led off 
the shrill chorus, — 

“Ginger crackers! Soda crackers! Rah! Rah! 
Rah ! Teacher ! ” 

Laughing and blushing, she bowed in acknowledg- 
ment of the salute. For the moment, she felt that 
she knew some of the emotions of the newly elected 
president of the university. 

The refrain renewed itself, — 

“Ginger crackers! Soda crackers! Rah! Rah! 
Rah ’ Miss Dering ’ ” 

Then there came a number not down upon the 
programme. From the rear rank of the throng, Toni 


TONI CHAMPIONS NAOMI. 


109 


bounced out into the open space, bumped against 
Hosie and jostled him away into the crowd. Then 
ecstatically he spun himself upon his toes, waved 
his arms in the air and let off an ear-piercing yell, — 
“Ah — h — h — h! Come on, fellers ! Now! Gin- 
ger crackers! Soda crackers! Eah! Eah! Eah! 
Naomi an’ her kid ! ” And, around the corner, the 
Eose Street mongrels bayed a response to the final 
shriek with which he sought to emphasize his belief 
in Naomi’s honor. 


VIII. 


TONI SEES DEATH. 

“ Git away, Toni ! ” 

From afar, Phillie Luyckx warned him off ; then 
he sat down in the wheelbarrow, determined to de- 
fend his nine points of the law. For a half-hour,’ 
Toni had been insisting upon a tenth point. The 
rights of his turn next outweighed present possession. 
Phillie had had the wheelbarrow ever since the play- 
ground opened. There was only one wheelbarrow 
in the playground; Phillie was never unselfish, and 
long ago he had annexed that wheelbarrow as his 
own. 

“Git away, yerself. It’s my turn; Teacher said 
I could take it after you.” 

Phillie grinned malignly. 

“ She didn’t say w’en, though. Wot d’ yer want 
it for? Ter give Becky a ride? ” 

“ Nah ! ” By this time Toni was near enough to 
speak without shrieking, yet he neglected to lower 
his voice by so much as a semitone. “ None of yer 


TONI SEES DEATH. Ill 

business wot I’m goin’ ter do wid it. Git out, I 
say ! ” 

“Le’mebe.” 

“Will I, den?” 

With a swift attack on the wheel, the barrow 
turned upside down, and Phillie ignominiously bit 
the dust, to the manifest rapture of Linkie Jefferson 
who nearly tumbled from his seat on the seesaw. 
Phillie had lorded it too long over the minor proph- 
ets. Not one of them but rejoiced in his downfall. 

Three o’clock in a hot, suffocating afternoon. 
For the first time, that year, there was no breeze in 
the playground of School Number Seven. The sun 
beat down pitilessly from the cloudless sky, beat 
upon the baked earth of the yard, upon and even 
through the striped canvas of the awnings. A hor- 
ror of intense heat brooded over Kose Street. The 
watering cart had just passed through the place, 
and the roadway was filled with puddles, already 
glazing over the top with a shining, iridescent scum. 
In the deeper gutters, the children built little dams 
of refuse, to form. pools where they might cool their 
dusty feet. It was a day when, at mountain or 
sea, other children were glad to curl themselves up 
with a book in the corner of a shady verandah. 


112 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


Here there were neither verandahs nor shade, only 
the hot, damp, untidy rooms and the glaring, reek- 
ing oven of the street. 

Languidly enough the minor prophets had gath- 
ered in the playground, that afternoon, as soon as 
the gate was opened. Those who knew the place, 
were there in full force. Those who had never been 
there before, came there now. Anything was better, 
that day, than the familiar sights and udors of Eose 
Street, better than being within reach of parents 
whose nerves, never of the steadiest, were worn 
threadbare by the heat. The playground had never 
been so full before ; neither had the children been 
so languid or so quarrelsome. 

Naomi was one of the last to appear. She had 
dark circles under her eyes, and her step dragged 
heavily. For the once, Euth seemed stronger than 
her little caretaker, yet Naomi carried the heavy 
child in her arms, though she swayed under the 
weight of her burden. At sight of Teacher, how- 
ever, her face brightened, and her tread grew more 
elastic again. 

"Oh, Naomi, you shouldn’t carry Euth,” Teacher 
remonstrated. “ She is too heavy for you, and she 
is perfectly able to walk.” 


TONI SEES DEATH. 


113 


" It’s SO hot, an’ she don’t feel well, to-day. She 
cried, all noontime, an’ she wouldn’t eat any din- 
ner.” Naomi set down the child and loosed the 
curls clinging to the little neck, before she added, 
“So my papa gave me some pennies, an’ I bought 
a lot of apples for us both, an’ we had a picnic in 
the back yard.” 

“ What kind of apples, Naomi ? ” 

“These.” From her pocket she took a small, 
knotty apple, hard, unripe and as wholesome as the 
red rubber ball which Toni had taken. 

“ Oh, Naomi, and you have been eating these, and 
giving them to Euth! I wish you wouldn’t.” 

“ Yes’m,” Naomi said obediently, as she stuffed 
the apple into her pocket once more. “ What’s hap- 
penin’ in the street. Teacher? There’s men at the 
door, bringin’ in things.” 

Teacher gave a hasty glance at the drawn shades 
of the kindergarten room. 

“ What sort of things, Naomi? ” she inquired. 

“Great big horn things, sort o’ trumpets, only 
bigger.” 

“Perhaps it is something for the school,” Teacher 
suggested guilefully. 

“Maybe. They was talkin’ about it, down in 

8 


114 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


Eose Street. A man said ’twas somethin’ you was 
goin’ to do to us. He told me I’d better not come ; 
but I wasn’t afraid.” Naomi laughed gleefully, as 
she stood playing with Teacher’s fingers. 

Ten minutes later, there came a low call from the 
window of the kindergarten room, and Teacher 
stepped out into the middle of the yard. 

“How many of the boys and girls want a treat, 
this hot afternoon ? ” she called gayly. “ Those 
that do, may form in line, and, when I open the 
door, they may come inside the kindergarten room 
and sit down on the floor, close together, mind, for 
there are a great many of us here, to-day.” 

Large and airy as was the kindergarten room, on 
that day it seemed neither. The serried ranks of the 
minor prophets filled the floor from end to end, and 
the nameless aroma of Eose Street elevated itself 
above them and defied the wide-open windows to 
drive it forth. Even in one short hour, it clogged 
the lungs and mounted to the head, where it seemed 
to gather into a dull lump of pain, just above the 
nape of the neck. If one short hour could accom- 
plish so much misery, Teacher wondered vaguely 
what it must be to pass all one’s days in such an 
atmosphere. Under its subtle influence, she be- 


TONI SEES DEATH. 


115 


lieved that she might become capable of almost any 
crime. 

At the end of the room,. a man stood waiting be- 
side a box topped with the horn of which Naomi 
had spoken. When the children were settled and an 
expectant hush had fallen upon the room, he said a 
few words to Teacher, and then turned to the box. 

“ Ah— h — h, we’re goin’ ter have our faces took ! ” 
Adam exclaimed, while, with brotherly foresight, 
he raised the baby aloft into plain view. 

“Yer’ll bust it, if yer gits inter it,” Phillie ob- 
served sardonically. 

“Dat ain’t no camera,” Toni objected a little too 
audibly. “I seen one down in Rose Street, one day. 
A feller come along wid de copper an’ took some 
picters. His stood up on free legs an’ had a peek- 
hole under a rag.” 

But Teacher held up her hand warningly, and 
Toni was silent. The next minute, as if from far 
away, there came the sound of a band playing one 
of the popular street airs of the hour. In a mo- 
ment, a score of little heels were beating time to the 
refrain, which repeated itself and then ended in a 
burst of gnome-like laughter and a swift flow of 
conversation. 


116 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


Few of the children had heard a phonograph be- 
fore. Many of them looked terrified, and some even 
began to cry ; but Toni was ready for the emer- 
gency. 

“ Gee ! ” he burst out excitedly, at the first pause. 
“DaFs a talkin’ machine; ain’t it? Eun us in 
anodder, mister. Dat’s de way ter do it! Ain’t it 
a corker ! ” 

“Toni!” 

But the song that followed was more potent than 
Teacher’s voice, and Toni quieted down as far as it 
lay in him to be quiet. At his birth, he had discov- 
ered the secret of perpetual motion; under such cir- 
cumstances as this, he became fairly electric with 
vitality. And still the phonograph kept on and 
ever on. 

For some time, the crying had been silenced, the 
fear had given place to rapture, and the children sat 
quiet in the midst of the stupefying air. Side by 
side. Teacher and Miss Dering stood by the open 
window, looking over the sea of upturned faces. 
The summer’s experiment was drawing to a close. 
What had they accomplished? Pitifully little, be- 
side the great total of possible achievement. Much, 
very much, if one compared the actual condition of 


TONI SEES DEATH. 


117 


the children with what their condition might have 
been after a summer in the streets. They were 
cleaner, happier, less apathetic, less anxious-look- 
ing. And even the doctor had said that little 
Ruth — — 

Teacher sprang forward, and there was a sudden 
sensation in one corner of the room. Then Teacher 
turned back to the man at the phonograph. 

“Go on, please. It is all right,” she said quickly. 
And, lifting Naomi in her arms, she carried her out 
of the room and laid her down in the clearer air of 
the broad hallway. 

Teacher never forgot the half-hour that followed, 
although, in after years, she never could analyze the 
experience. The time was at once endless and swift- 
rushing; the events seemed inevitable, as they fol- 
lowed one another in quick succession, yet she found 
herself exhausted from the physical and mental 
strain of struggling against each one in its course. 
When once more she roused herself to take note of 
her surroundings, she, with Miss Dering and Miss 
Loomis, was kneeling down, bending over Naomi 
who was just coming out from a succession of vio- 
lent convulsions. They had moved her into the 
same light, airy room where Toni had suffered im- 


118 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


prisonment. She had cried out in her pain, and 
they had taken her away out of hearing of the other 
children; but, beside her, they could still hear the 
noise of the phonograph, distant and gnome-like, 
yet piercing. They had no thought that Naomi was 
dangerously ill, yet the songs jarred upon them while 
they watched the slow relaxation of the rigid little 
form. The room where they were grouped, faced the 
street ; but they were too absorbed in caring for Na- 
omi to heed the faces peering in at the window or 
to note that their disappearing was followed by the 
quick patter of running feet. 

“She is better now,” Teacher said at last, as the 
brown eyes opened dully. “ Shall we carry her into 
the other room and see if we can make her more 
comfortable there? ” 

Gently they lifted her and carried her to an im- 
provised couch in another room. Little by little the 
child struggled backward from the mysterious bor- 
derland between the Now and the Then. She stirred 
a little, turned on her side, and looked up at Teacher 
with a smile of recognition. 

“Where is Euth? ” she asked faintly. “Did she 
cry for me?” 

“Euth is with Orpah and quite happy,” Teacher 


TONI SEES DEATH. 


119 


answered, while she stroked the tangle of curls away 
from the thin forehead. “We’ll let her come in 
here by and by.” 

“No; now,” Naomi insisted. “She’ll cry with 
Orpah; she always does. She wants her Naomi.” 

In obedience to a. nod from Teacher, Miss Dering 
went to the kindergarten room in search of Euth. 
As the door was opened, there came, shrill and pierc- 
ing, a wail from the phonograph, — 

“In the swe — e — e— et by and by — y — y — y, 

We shall meet ” 

Hand in hand, Orpah and Euth appeared upon the 
threshold. Orpah paused fora minute; then, as she 
saw Naomi lying white and still, she uttered a shriek 
and sprang forward, dragging Euth at her side. 

“ Oh, Naomi’s deaded ! Naomi’s deaded ! Who’s 
killed her? ” And she threw herself down, with her 
face buried in Naomi’s skirts. 

It was all over in an instant, before they could 
foresee it or prevent. Still weak in body and dull 
in mind, Naomi had roused herself only in part from 
her stupor, only long enough to ask for the baby 
who was never long out of her thoughts. Then she 
had dropped back into a heavy lethargy into which 


120 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


rang Orpah’s cry. At the voice of her little sister, 
the mother instinct prevailed yet once again. Gath- 
ering all her strength, she struggled to sit up. She 
partly lifted herself; the next minute she turned 
white with the blue-wliiteness of which Teacher had 
confessed her dread, and suddenly dropped back, un- 
conscious. 

“ Come here ! ” Sharp and incisive, Isabel Der- 
ing’s voice broke in upon the silence that followed, 
when Teacher and Miss Loomis were swiftly apply- 
ing the restoratives within their reach. “The street 
is crowded, and they are shouting for the children.” 

“ What ! ” Teacher started up from her knees. 

“Yes. Come to the window.” 

Teacher left Miss Loomis to work over Naomi, 
and hurried to the window. Then she grew white 
to the very lips. Outside, the broad street was 
filled with a solid mass of people, ragged women, 
unkempt women, men with tall hats on the backs of 
their heads, men with long beards and no hats at 
all, a furious, excited mob, jabbering and shaking 
their fists and crying out that the building was on 
fire and the children were locked in, that the teachers 
were poisoning the children, and again that there 
was fire, fire, and that their children were powerless 


TONI SEES DEATH. 


121 


to escape. And across the hall, the phonograph had 
just finished a comic song, and there came floating 
out to Teacher’s ears a thin thread of childish laugh- 
ter. And in the next room, little Naomi was so near 
the borderland that her ears were deaf to the sounds 
about her. 

“ What shall we do? ” Miss Dering asked. 

Teacher had regained her wonted quiet. 

“We must send the children out at once,” she 
said. “We mustn’t waste a minute, for the crowd 
is getting violent. Go to Naomi, and send Miss 
Loomis to me. No; send the janitor to the gate, 
first of all. Tell him not to unlock it till the head 
of the line gets there.” 

A moment later. Teacher came back into the kin- 
dergarten room with Miss Loomis at her side. Agog 
with merriment, the children looked up to greet her 
coming. She spoke a word or two to the man. 
Then she turned to the prophets. 

“Now, children,” she said, and her voice was as 
even and quiet as they had ever known it to be ; 
“this is all for to-day. I want you to form your 
line now, ready to march out and go home.” 

Kegretfully they rose. It was Toni who voiced 
the general protest. 


122 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“’Tain’t time, Teacher. Can’ we have anodder 
one, just one little one? ” 

She shook her head. It seemed to her incredible 
that the children could be deaf to the turbulent 
throng outside. 

" Wot’s we goin’ for now?” he persisted. "Can’ 
we play out’n de yard ? ” 

Teacher turned to the assistant. 

"Miss Sally, will you play the march, please? ” 
All summer long, the children had been sent out 
of the kindergarten room to the beat of that same 
march. To-day, the familiar strains took on a new 
meaning to some of their hearers, although it was 
just in the wonted fashion that the line moved 
away, with Miss Loomis walking backward at its 
head. Her cheeks were a shade pinker than usual, 
her blue eyes were blazing and her head proudly 
erect as she moved off, a fiery, intrepid little figure, 
down the hallway, through the door into the yard, 
around the corner of the building, and, still with her 
back toward the menacing mob, out to the very gate, 
which swung open, just as she stepped aside to let 
the children pass through. 

As the line of children came nearer the gate, there 
was a strange contrast: their careless astonishment 


TONI SEES DEATH. 


123 


at seeing their elders gathered outside, and the ter- 
ror-stricken faces of the parents who swarmed at 
the gate, gripping with long, gaunt arms at the chil- 
dren within. There was no appearance of mother 
love, no tenderness; it was like the snatching of a 
beast of prey, the clawing of a ravenous animal. 
Then the gate swung together again, as the last 
child was swallowed up in the crowd. Outside, the 
mob was growing larger. Inside, there were two 
men and six women, and the upper panels of the 
stout oak door were made of glass. 

“What’s that?” Isabel Dering started up sud- 
denly, as a small figure shot past her. 

The next moment, she went flying to the door. 
Just ahead of her, Phillie Luyckx had turned the 
key, and she was met on the threshold by a browsy, 
bareheaded woman. Beyond the woman, she saw 
other women; beyond them, men, all infuriated with 
superstitious fear, all rushing forward. For one 
instant, they stood face to face. Then heredity tri- 
umphed. Isabel Dering never understood how it 
happened that the door swung together with a clang 
of its spring lock, and she stood alone in the broad 
vestibule. She only sat down on the stairs for a 
minute. Then she went back to Teacher. 


124 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


“The whole of Eose Street is here, I should 
think,” Teacher said. “We must have the police 
and a doctor.” 

“Is Naomi ” 

“I can’t tell. She isn’t conscious ; but I think 
she isn’t any worse. Still, we ought to have a 
doctor. ” 

“Shall I telephone?” 

“There isn’t a telephone here.” 

“There is one in the office.” 

“It is only a local circuit.” 

For a moment. Miss Dering faltered. 

“ Oh, what shall we do ? ” she cried despairingly. 

“There is a telephone in the corner drug store,” 
Teacher answered quietly. “ I am going over there.” 

Miss Dering sprang up excitedly. 

“ You can’t ! They’ll kill you ! ” 

“No; they won’t dare do anything worse than 
talk. I’m not afraid.” 

“Send the man.” 

“ He is working over Naomi, and I can’t spare 
him. He is of more use there.” 

“But you mustn’t go.” 

Teacher smiled a little. Then she raised her 
head. 


TONI SEES DEATH. 125 

“ I must go, Isabel. I should be the one, if any- 
body. They won’t touch me.” 

Outside, the news of Naomi’s sudden and myste- 
rious illness had spread among the crowd. They 
were shouting for her to be brought out to them, 
calling their old threats against the place, yet 
Teacher walked boldly up to the gate and stood 
waiting, while the janitor turned the key in the 
great iron padlock. As she paused there, trim and 
dainty and dauntless in her young womanhood, she 
raised her eyes and looked about over the wild, fe- 
verish crowd outside. Then the gate swung open, 
and she stepped out into their midst. There was 
no demonstration, no outcry. The crowd parted 
before her, as she crossed the street; there were 
whispered threats, a low, menacing murmur. Then, 
straight from the heart of the crowd, there came 
Toni’s voice, hilarious and exultant, — 

“Ah — h — h, dere she is! Dere’s my Teacher! 
See her? She’s a peach! Hullo, Teacher! ” 

And the cry, caught up and echoed by scores of 
loving, loyal little voices scattered among the crowd, 
drowned the menacing - murmurs and brought to 
Teacher’s ears the perfect surety that the end had 
crowned the work. 


IX. 


TONI BECOMES REGENERATE. 

Half an hour later, the street was deserted. In- 
side the locked doors of School Number Seven, 
Teacher and Miss Dering and the teachers sat on 
the stairs, talking over the events of the afternoon. 
Miss Dering looked at her watch. 

“Just one hour and eighteen minutes since I 
called to you to let in the children,” she said. 
“ Think of all that has happened since then ! ” 

“ ‘From battle and murder and from sudden death,’” 
Teacher quoted softly. “ But I was surprised to see 
how quickly they forgot us, and rushed off after the 
ambulance.” 

Isabel Dering laughed a little nervously. 

“ I shall never forget my emotions when the doc- 
tor’s carriage, and the ambulance, and the patrol 
wagon, and the fire engine, all came bearing down 
upon ,us at the same moment. Stupid things to 
send in an alarm of fire ! What a crazy race they 


TONI BECOMES REGENERATE. 127 

are ! It’s not much use to try to do anything for 
them.” 

But Teacher took a more merciful view of the 
case. 

“Think of the generations of persecution, Isabel! 
They are suspicious and superstitious, and most of 
them couldn’t understand a word of what the police 
said to them. I don’t wonder that they were half 
frantic.” 

“Do you think Naomi ” 

“ I am not letting myself think. ” Teacher shud- 
dered, as she recalled the tone in which the doctor 
had said that the child must be moved at once. He 
was an old man and a skilful ; he had tried his best 
to recall little Naomi from the misty borderland. 
When at last he had risen to his feet and called for 
men to carry her to the ambulance, Teacher had 
understood him. For the sake of them all, it would 
not do to allow the child to be there, when the 
moment came for her to pass the border. “ We did 
all we could,” she added, after a moment. “ Perhoj-s 
it was foreordained. I can’t fancy Naomi growing 
up in that atmosphere.” 

“She may rally.” 

“ She may ; but — Isabel, do you realize that her 


128 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


last thought was for Euth ? And yet, they call it 
a selfish race.” 

The face of a policeman appeared in the glass of 
the doorway. 

“The doctor sent me back to report,” he said, as 
soon as the door was opened. “ The child was liv- 
ing, when we got her to the hospital. The doctor 
says she may hold on through the night.” 

“ Did you have any trouble with the crowd ? ” 
Teacher asked. 

The man shook his head. 

“ They didn’t dare ; there were too many of us. 
They followed us clear to the hospital door, though, 
and tried to get in.” 

He was interrupted by a messenger from the drug 
store over the way. 

“They’ve just telephoned over from the hospital 
that the child has died, and they asked us to tell 
you to go away at once. The mob is all outside the 
hospital now; as soon as they know the child is 
dead, they are likely to come back here, and the 
police are afraid that there may be trouble, if they 
find you here.” 

Teacher rose. Her voice had regained all its 
quiet, even inflection, as she said, — 


TONI BECOMES REGENERATE. 129 

"Come, then, all of you. We mustn’t stop for 
anything. To-day is Thursday. We won’t open 
the yard, to-morrow. Miss Loomis. I will be here, 
early Monday morning. Isabel, can I count on 
you, too ? ” 

The reaction came, that night, however. Teacher 
was powerless to sleep. She could only toss to and 
fro, going over and over again the scenes of the 
afternoon, convincing herself that it was all inevit- 
able. The doctor’s verdict had been brief and to the 
point: constitutional weakness, imprudent eating 
and heart failure. Nothing had been left undone ; 
but — what would the playground be without little 
Naomi? All summer long. Teacher had depended 
upon her, watched for her greeting, counted upon 
her loyalty, felt sure of her influence for good upon 
the other children. Then, as she restlessly sat up 
and turned over her pillow. Teacher suddenly be- 
thought herself of Toni’s shrill, exultant greeting 
which had risen from the midst of that hostile 
mob. Naomi’s was not the only loyalty that she 
had won. Toni, too, had proclaimed himself her 
friend. 

In a sort of apathy, the next morning, she was still 

lingering over her breakfast. She was alone, for 

9 


130 


PLAYGROUND TONI, 


the rest of the family had long since left the table. 
The maid appeared in the doorway. 

“ There’s a boy out here as wants to see you, ” she 
announced. “ Says his name is Toni, and he’s got 
something for you.” 

Teacher’s face brightened. 

“Bring him in,” she said. 

“ Him ? ” The tone was incredulous. 

“ Yes. Be quick, please. ” 

“He ain’t fit, ma’am.” 

“ Bring him here at once. ” There was no doubt 
of Teacher’s wish in the matter. 

A moment later, Toni appeared upon the threshold. 
As the maid had said, he certainly was not fit to 
make his d^but into a conventional up-town dining- 
room, and yet he had made certain efforts to beau- 
tify himself. His head bore signs of having been 
immersed in a pail of water, and the drops, trickling 
down from above, had irrigated his face, irrigated, 
but not cleansed it. He wore a new brown jumper 
some sizes too large for himself, and his overalls 
were rolled up into neat bundles about his knees. 
Apparently he had started with shoes upon his feet. 
Now they were transferred to his neck where they 
dangled by their knotted strings. Under his arm 


TONI BECOMES REGENERATE. 131 

he carried a large round bundle, wrapped in news- 
papers aged and limp. 

“ Hullo ! ” he said laconically, while, from under 
his long lashes, he shot curious glances about the 
room. 

“Oh, Toni, how do you do? Did you come all 
this long way up here to see me ? ” 

“Yep. I brung yer somethin’. Here, ketch 
hold.” 

Teacher’s heart sank within her, as she took the 
bundle into her hands. It sank still lower, when 
she drew aside the limp papers, and saw the half of 
a burly watermelon within. The watermelon was 
quite ripe, and it had obviously parted with its other 
and better half at some remote point of its career. 
Must she eat it? Would she too go, even as Na- 
omi had gone? Then she looked up to meet Toni’s 
radiant eyes, and her own eyes softened. 

“Thank you, dear,” she said then. “I have had 
ever so many things brought to me; but I don’t be- 
lieve any of them ever pleased me more than this. 
Now sit down beside me and have a taste of my . 
breakfast. ” 

“Dey says yer p’isoned Naomi,” Toni remarked, 
without further preface. 


132 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


Teacher’s fork paused in mid-air. 

“ Who says so ? ” 

“All de people in Eose Street, all but me an’ Mr. 
Budesheim.” 

“Eeally?” 

“Yep; but dey don’ know nothin’ about it,” Toni 
asserted, with his mouth rather unbecomingly full. 
“Dey says yer dassent open de playground ag’in.” 

“ But we are going to. ” 

“Sure? ’Tain’t open ter-day, an’ so I come up 
ter see about it. Yer re’ly an’ truly goin’ ter come 
back? ” 

“Yes, of course.” 

“When?” 

“Next Monday.” 

“I’ll be dere. Wasn’ dat talkin’ machine great? 
I wish Naomi hadn’ whopped over an’ busted up de 
whole show.” 

“ Poor little Naomi ! What shall we do without 
her, Toni; and what will become of Ruth? ” 

“ I der know. Say, Teacher, are yer cornin’ down, 
Monday, sure? ” 

“Yes.” 

“An’ I kin tell Adam an’ de udder fellers dat 
you’ll be dere ? ” 


TONI BECOMES REGENERATE. 133 

"Yes.” 

"All right. Dat’s wot I come for. We’ll be dere. 
G’by.” • • 

"But, Toni, don’t hurry.” 

"Got ter. Wot’s de use er bangin’ roun’? ” 

"Well, take another muffin.” 

She held out the plate. Toni looked at it with 
glistening eyes, for the muffins were brown and 
puffy and sweet. Then he snatched all that his two 
hands could hold, crammed one into his mouth and 
bestowed the others in his shoes. Then he paused 
and stood irresolute, with his right hand plunged 
into the depths of a baggy pocket. Teacher saw 
that something was on his mind. 

" What is it, Toni ? ” she asked. 

There was a short silence. Then he said swiftly, — 

" I swiped dis on yer onct. I wish I hadn’. I 
do’ want it no more; yer kin give it ter de kiddie.” 
And he took from his pocket a soiled rubber ball 
and laid it on the empty plate. Then he drew a 
deep sigh of relief. "Dat’s all,” he said content- 
edly. "G’by. See yer, Monday.” And he van- 
ished. 

However, Monday morning came, and no Toni. 
Teacher and Miss Dering were on hand early, ready 


134 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


for whatever emergency might arise^ It must be 
confessed that their hearts beat a little faster than 
usual, as they rode down the street and dismounted 
at the gate of School Number Seven. They found 
the street deserted, save for the half-dozen minor 
prophets waiting outside the gate. 

“They will all come back,” Miss Dering said 
bravely. 

But Teacher only answered, — 

“ Wait.” 

They did wait. When the time came to open the 
gate, there was no eager, excited throng of little 
faces. Nineteen loyal prophets marched in and 
took possession of all things. For the once, there 
were quite toys enough to go around; but Teacher, 
as she watched, would too gladly have exchanged 
the unwonted peace for the old wrangles of “my 
turn next.” Little by little the yard filled. Chil- 
dren came, peered in, stepped cautiously through the 
gate and went scurrying away to their wonted places ; 
and yet there was many a familiar face missing be- 
sides that of Naomi. 

By ten o’clock, more than a hundred children 
had gathered, and the playground of School Number 
Seven had taken on much of its usual appearance. 


TONI BECOMES REGENERATE. 


135 


Swings were flying, seesaws going, the sand bin was 
thick with babies and, far across the yard, a line of 
warriors bold was holding a military drill under the 
stern command of Captain Adam Dombowski. 
Teacher stood watching the familiar little faces, once 
so strange to her, but now such well-tried friends. 
Hosie was there, and Sollie, and Bennie, and Amos, 
who seemed in no way cast down by the loss of his 
little sister. But Toni was missing ; Teacher found 
it impossible to realize that his failure to appear could 
make such a wide difference to the measure of her 
content. He had said he would surely be there. 
Had he turned faithless ? No. She could not be- 
lieve in his disloyalty. Bather accept the theory 
that the unwonted indulgence in muffins had proved 
disastrous. 

“Hullo, Toni!” Forgetting his official dignity, 
Adam flourished his sword above his head. It was 
a real sword, part of the one toy uniform which was 
distributed in sections throughout the entire brig- 
ade. 

Teacher’s heart gave a quick thump, and she 
turned more eagerly than she was aware. Around 
the corner of the school building came Toni, hot, 
and flushed, and dishevelled. Clinging to his fore- 


136 


PLAYGROUND TONI. 


finger and looking, if possible, even more dishevelled, 
and flushed, and hot than her protector, Kuth Bu- 
desheim trudged stolidly along. Her clothing bore 
evidences of a fray, evidences, too, that she had been 
picked up and carried by two smutty hands; her 
eyes and cheeks showed that her rebellion had been 
marked by many tears. Now she was subdued, 
and Toni was correspondingly jubilant. 

There was no mark upon him to show the traces 
of his moral struggle, no air of saintship nor of re- 
nunciation ; yet even Toni had fought his good fight 
against the demon of selfishness, and had come off 
victorious. He paused at Teacher’s side and looked 
straight up into her blue eyes. 

“I busted de snake,” he said tersely. “I’m awful 
late; but it took me a good while. Yer see, dere 
wasn’ nobody else, an’ so I brung de kiddie.” 


THE END. 


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